Outreach & Teaching

Kristin is co-leading an Unlearning Racism in the Geosciences (URGE) “pod” during Spring 2021. URGE seeks to “deepen the community’s knowledge of the effects of racism on the participation and retention of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in Geoscience” as well as “develop anti-racist policies and strategies… within a dynamic community network and on a national stage.”

In conjunction with several collaborators across the discipline, Kristin co-authored a piece in the SEPM publication “The Sedimentary Record” calling for making SEPM a diverse, inclusive, and equitable society for all. This article argues for swift, decisive action, and includes actionable recommendations to affect change.

Kristin has been an active advocate for improving SEPM’s Ethics and Policy Guidelines.

As a faculty representative of the MIT EAPS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (DEIC) and Women in Course 12 (WiXII), Kristin Bergmann to promote equity of experiences, inclusion of each and every member of the MIT community, and promote a diversity of approaches and questions.

Members of the Bergmann Lab and graduate students from MIT EAPS took 60 middle school students from Dana Hall school to rock outcrops in Nahant, MA. Students braved the rain to learn what's in a geologist's backpack, how to use hand lenses, what fossils from the Cambrian look like, and the geologic history of Massachusetts. Photo credit: Lyssa Freese

The Bergmann Lab spent an evening talking science, looking at ancient fossils, and drinking local craft beer with community members at Aeronaut Brewing as part of their "Science by the Pint" series. Photo credit: Kristin Bergmann

The Bergmann Lab spent the day on the coast in Nahant, MA, teaching scientific observation skills, rock identification, and how to pack for a field excursion with middle school students and educators from the Dana Hall School. Photo credit: Kristin Bergmann

Students from Prospect Hill Academy visited the Bergmann Lab to see geoscientists in action. Bergmann Lab members showed students fossils under the microscope, how weathering and erosion move sediment, and what geologists bring along on field excursions.

Kristin Bergmann joined several other scientists from MIT and other local universities to encourage girls and women to pursue science at the 6th annual MIT Museum's Girls Day. "Scientists can be explorers," Bergmann said to the 800 girls and young women in the audience. "Be creative and curious, even if it means getting some B's and C's along the way." Photo credit: Lauren Hinkel

The Bergmann Lab showed drone photography and rock samples from recent research in Svalbard to community members at the New England Aquarium before Susan Solomon's lecture, "A Brief History of Environmental Successes." Photo credit: Kristin Bergmann

In June of 2017, the Bergmann Lab took a group of students from the Dana Hall School to an oceanside rock outcrop near Nahant, MA. Dana Hall students learned observation and note-taking skills, identified rocks and minerals, and worked together in teams to uncover clues about the geologic past. Photo credit: Lesley Doll at Dana Hall School

The Bergmann Lab visited the students Dana Hall School for a day of interactive geoscience. Bergmann Lab member Marjorie Cantine is shown involving Dana Hall students in tabletop demonstrations of erosion and sedimentation. Photo Credit: Adam Richins

The Bergmann Lab took to the streets of Cambridge to participate in the annual Earth Day Science Fair put on by the Envrironment Solutions Initiative. Lab members engaged local youngsters in interactive activities demonstrating erosion, sedimentation, and the water cycle, as well as showing sedimentary rock samples. Photo credit: Maya Stokes

The Bergmann Lab joins six other geoscience labs in the URG² program sponsored by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. URG² offers paid summer research opportunities to undergraduates curious about geoscience. The program encourages those with no prior experience in the field to apply -- see the URG² website for more information and application instructions.

The Bergmann Lab is excited to announce the beginning of the EdX MOOC course titled “Nature’s Sandbox: The History of Ancient Environments, Climate, and Life”. This interactive course combines conventional whiteboard teaching with virtual field trips and expert discussions. This course has attracted a diverse group of 875 learners from ages 14-89 who are excited about Earth science. Photo credit: Adam Jost

As an instructor for the Agouron Institute geobiology short course in 2018 and 2019, Kristin led a session on petrography. Photo credit: Kristin Bergmann

In 2018 and 2020, Kristin created and co-led the MIT EAPS first-year graduate student course. This course seeks to build cohesion among first-year graduate students, and, importantly, shed light on the “hidden curriculum” of academia. Unspoken rules, procedures, and norms tend to exclude and disadvantage underrepresented students in the Earth sciences: this course attempts to demystify STEM.

Kristin was honored with MIT’s Committed to Caring Award for professors who “go above and beyond to make an impact in the lives of graduate students.” Student nominators shared that Kristin’s efforts have “both improved the department’s culture and empowered students to work to change department culture” and given students “the space to succeed on their own.” Photo credit: Gretchen Ertl

Kristin Bergmann led a field trip to the coast south of Boston to show the Neoproterozoic Squantum Tillite to students in her course "Nature's Sandbox: The History of Ancient Environments, Climate, and Life. Students learned how to sketch an outcrop, how use a hand lens and Jacob staff, and how to identify common rock types. Photo credit: Noah Anderson

For Prof. Kristin Bergmann's annual spring break field trip for her Sedimentary Environments course, students explored the sedimentology of coastal environments in Bermuda. Photo credit: Julia Wilcots

Over Spring Break of 2017, Kristin Bergmann led her Sedimentary Environments course to Death Valley, CA for a week-long field trip to explore the Cambrian Carrara Formation, creatively combining the use of drones and traditional field methods to assess lateral variations in stratigraphy. Highlights included witnessing the record of transition from a microbialite- to skeletal-dominated world, learning how to use iPads in the field, and lovely desert flowers. Photo Credit: Kristin Bergmann