Open House

Today, the University which I attend (although not for much longer!) held an open house day along the theme of ‘Exploration’ and I had the opportunity to take part in on the geosciences contribution towards the event. The outreach we were running (which is designed more to be fun, than educational) was a ‘dinosaur trackway’. Essentially children don on wellington boots with sponge dinosaur feet stuck onto the boots, which are dipped into ink and then children run down a long strip of paper – their stride is calculated and they are compared to a dinosaur – it’s a little more entertaining than I’ve described it; but that’s pretty much the gist of it.

The track way is always popular, I mean, it’s dinosaurs and the potential for mess – guaranteed to make children want to have a go; and although they leave with some knowledge of the geosciences (very limited... basically what dinosaur had a stride the same as theirs) it seems to me that a good opportunity of communicating geoscience is being squandered. Simply; a dinosaur trackway, although it may be appealing for little kids, older children seem to look at you with a look of ‘and... what now?’

I can’t help thinking something vaguely along the exploration line should have been provided – I mean geoscience is the science of finding stuff we need. Some economic minerals are fairly pretty and a fair few sparkle – why not tie in exploration and geoscience in that way? Or have some real bits of dinosaur – posters are all well and good, but something touchable is considerably more exciting and informative.

However, in terms of the actually event,  I noted a couple of things:

Happy children = happy parents: Important at this particular event which was being used as essentially a large PR exercise for the University.

Children want to do something: Maybe why this outreach has such a wide usage, the children are involved in making something and they seemed to enjoy it, which is the main thing.

Knowledge of the staff/volunteers: I am clueless about dinosaurs (in relation to an enthusiastic 7 year old) so when asked more complex questions I struggled a little (defusing the situation with hand gestures) . If you pitch too high– what if the volunteer can’t remember the lecture on oil stratigraphy? Or has never seen a lump of glittering ore?  This factor I guess, allows the trackway, although simple and limited to be used without fear of the cardinal sin of communication – getting something wrong.

It’s knackering: Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about rocks (just ask my girlfriend) but it is pretty exhausting particularly if you don’t really know what you’re talking about – it’s also not a pleasant experience! (the cluelessness, not the talking!)

Looking around the room the essence was more on fun than learning – the maths department had bubbles – and although I am a firm believer in transmitting information at any opportunity, perhaps offering fun for 80% of the time and information for the remaining 20% gave everyone a good experience. Which is what matters.

Ø 

Who let the Dinosaur in?

Although I am someone who really does not like dinosaurs, I can see their power over children; and a while ago, I stumbled over this little video:

What better way to get children interested in palaeontology (and probably a bit of geology) than a huge scary dinosaur? The thing moves how I would imagine it to; as part of my universities outreach program, we have a ‘dinosaur runway’ thing. Which is essentially a big piece of paper which children run over in oversized dinosaur shaped and then we compare their stride lengths with really dinosaurs and tell them a bit about it – the children seem to love it and I hope it interests them in geosciences.

Events like these can be lasting memories to children, and if they contain an educational message (a quick interesting presentation of dinosaurs or geology), it can be a wholesome outreach event. One of my most vivid childhood memories is a visit to a local ‘attraction’ which had a fake earthquake generator – and discussion of how it earthquakes are generated (this to me, was much more interesting than the fake dinosaurs nearby). It would be great to see more of this sort of thing in the UK; I can’t imagine a fake dinosaur costume costs too much to produce – but gives children an excitement into paleontology, lifting dry bones and pictures to a real, interactive life.

Clast Unsupported - tales from a small Sussex town

Recently I emailed my local college, where I was educated to see if they wanted any help with geology revision for their GCSE cohort, a couple of years ago I’d been along to one of their fieldtrips for their coursework and felt like lending a hand again. I received a startling reply, that the school no longer runs GCSE Geology (nor A-Level) due to a poor interest rate amongst pupils.  So, further to my previous post on what primary school children have the opportunity to learn within the geosciences it’s worth looking at what students at my former school will have the opportunity to learn about the goings on inside their planet.

So what do the children get taught?

Geoscience tends to get relegated with geography – so only students who whose GCSE (a GCSE is a qualification gained at 16 that is taken by all UK students before progression into A-Levels, diplomas or the working world) geography (within my year of 270 about 60) will receive tuition into the earth’s processes. Rocks and materials (i.e granite is hard, where cement comes from etc) is covered in chemistry through KS3-GCSE. Looking to the syllabus of GSCE Geography (in this case the exam board AQA) there is a strong focus as to the involvement of plate tectonics and associated landforms (ie Fold Mountains and exciting volcanoes). Excluding a mere footnote there is no interest in Resources, nor petrology or palaeontology. Geography students will have the idea that geosciences is about plate tectonics & volcanoes, how it affects peoples and nothing else.  It is not geology they are studying; it is simply physical geography with people.

The town has been flooded as a partially as a result of upstream geology - this is part of taught geography (GCSE). But the affects are on people, not geological past of stratigraphy

http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/newgcse/pdf/AQA-4030-CP-SW-W-TRB-TSM.PDF

The focus on exciting aspects of geology would however supply interest – 15 year olds are unlikely to be interested in thrust faulting in Scotland but a huge eruption of Yellowstone (which AQA seem to have an obsession with) may encourage a student to read more – and eventually be captivated.

So, say a teenager in a small Sussex town (Uckfield, for those in the area) decides to have a look into the geosciences what will they find? Well Uckfield has two bookshops and one library (which isn’t quite the coolest place to ‘hang out’) I realise that online books are a major market, but for the purposes of clarity and realism (most 15 year olds don’t have a credit card) I will stick with what is locally available.  So starting with the bookshops.

In WH-Smith I could find no books on the geosciences (couple on GCSE Geography though) but could read to my heart’s content on local buses through the war, Chameleons and Dr Who. Mildly outraged I called my local branch and was informed that the store is not large enough to stock science books. Looking to the magazine rack only New Scientist was propping up science – while there were 10 train-enthusiast magazines and stacks of those with the words ‘country’ ‘house’ and ‘life’. Further down the street ‘British Bookshops’ which stocked no geological books (50% of the shop is devoted to cards) but did feature enough science fiction to fill anyone’s need.  I called the store again to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything - but found that my original searching had proved to be correct. So, within a town of 14,000 people there is no geologically orientated book for sale (admittedly there may be some in the numerous charity shops, but no 15 year old goes in there – except under duress)

14,000 people but no geology taught or sold. 

The library on the other hand has a wealth of decent books, suitable for local interest and public reading. I had attempted to get hold of the number of times these books had been lent in order to assess their interest – but the information, in this digital age is not recorded.  The local library holds eight books which I feel (having read most of them!) give a good introduction to geology across the world and UK (including the brilliant 'Earth: An Intimate History by Fortey' and the child / youth friendly Moving Earth by Orne).  However, the library is rarely frequented by teenagers and from memory I always felt a suspicious and frosty reception whenever I went in there.

The local area is well noted for its geology. Charles Dawson, the lawyer who ‘discovered’ the Piltdown Man lived in the town, while the first dinosaur was discovered 10 miles away, the local company Soil Instruments is a world leader in geotechnical design and the Weald, in which the town sits was discussed by Darwin in this keystone publication and exploited for 2000 years for its iron. So what can we surmise? Well, that interest in the geosciences cannot be relied upon to be stimulated in school (much although I thank several members of staff for propping up my interest during my studies there) due to the watery and non-direct curriculum, nor can interest be gained via local bookshops - this could well be the reasoning behind the cessation of geology being taught at the local college.  The lack of publications available does not just affect the young; adults, whom may have missed out in geology at school or (re)ignited an interest to are denied the opportunity to purchase books in their own town which, although they can access titles online easier, many geological inspired books are easy and pleasant to read for the casual reader (Fortey's Earth for example) and will captivate someone in a shop - but not on Amazon.

This does speak for itself within stats, I am, to my knowledge of the 2 years above and one below (roughly 1000 students), the only student to leave my college and pursue a career in the geosciences. The college has generated enough fashion students to fill Milan, Paris and New York many times over but it is letting the science that will allow those fashionisters to make bright dyes and sparkly dresses falter.   

Touchscreen Display

 Today I had the chance to volunteer on behalf of my university at a local museum, as part of British science week. Which seems to entail plenty of disinterested school children being bussed to a local museum, where a group of scientists from nearby scientific institutions bombard them with a variety of information about mini-beasts, ocean acidification and in our case, fossils and a couple of rocks. The children were UK years 4/5 (so 8-10 year olds) so had plenty of much more interesting things to think about (mainly Pokémon)

Initially the session was run as a stand and point, fossils and objects were held and discussed. With cards with the fossils details assigned to each specimen. Hardly a stimulating session, which left most of the children fairly bored (even their teaching assistant wandered off to look at beetles), language used by my colleague was even getting me bored. What 9 year old cares how ammonites floated? They want to know about big things, and feel the fossil!

This seems to directly be an analogue of a lot of museum exhibits, those hidden behind a glass case, safe, although restricted from curious hands and as a boundary between the object and interested parties. These children may never find an ammonite or a mammoth tooth; so will be denied the opportunity to feel the ribs on the shell or the ridges on the tooth.

With this in mind I decided on a fresh approach, as a mini-experiment to see if the children were more engaged: The kids spend all day being talked to, and we have a table of novel and interesting objects so why not get the kids picking them up? Sure they might get dropped, but the university/ museum has tonnes of ammonites, most of which spend their lives in draws.  

Discussion rather than lecturing proceeded. Yes, if these kids decide to go to university and study geosciences they will experience lectures – but there they want to learn. I also found using things the children would have heard about to get them interested, so there has been plenty of talk in the news about radioactivity in Japan as a result of the goings on down there. Well I had found some raduiohalos halos in the biotites of the thin sections of granites we had – seemed natural to get the kids interested in the minerals by relating it to them, also acted to slightly scare them, which always get children interested!

The children who were touching the objects and looking at them as they should be looked at retained more interest (so we can assume information) and asked questions – rather than stood vacantly. Nothing was dropped (except by me), nothing went missing but more was given.

Going back to the different museum analogue should museums operate in this way? Well there are a couple of problems, firstly it was exhausting enough for 2 hours, anyone doing it for a whole day would be shattered. Secondly we were there to watch the objects so it was unlikely anything was going to go walkabout; in an exhibition with maybe unstaffed anything lying around would have to be secured down or very inexpensive (ammonites on Ebay?! – very cheap). But are these such hurdles for introducing geosciences within a museum environment? – I don’t think so!

Down to Earth.

Google Earth is without doubt Google’s best products, forget finding out what’s my local take away, forget rapid transit around a city – I want to look at my house in amazing resolution and wander around the Californian Desert looking for faults!

Possibly the most powerful thing about the program is its ability to easily incorporate third-party data onto the projection of earth, most of this information is free, and files are fast to download. Many a fieldtrip I have been on with the University has utilised the software to provide a image to demonstrate the presence of a fault or particular bed - I even used Google earth to find faults in my dissertation mapping area that had eluded me in the field (to be fair, they were cutting schist). Information extra to the program is downloaded to the user by a small (since the data is then streamed from the web) file termed a ‘kml’.

The BGS have released all of the UK’s geology (At a fair resolution) as a kml file, and although it makes the program run bit slowly (best to zoom in, find an area then turn it on). It’s a great resource, and given that in a previous post I highlighted the importance of maps in interesting people to the geosciences the availability of free, exciting maps presented in a naturally pleasant manner on a simple to use – but powerful program is brilliant.

Image of the Geology of Central UK - each bed can be clicked on for further data. Resolution improves when zoomed in. A brilliant free resource for public communication of Geology. 

The USGS, however are not left behind; they have released an earthquake locator kml file; which also gives the locations and movement of worldwide tectonic plates. Alongside, mainly Californian resources into tectonics. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kml.php - With supporting material provided. Recent events in the far east, have highlighted the importance of an understanding of tectonics and downloading that particular kml file really highlights the incredible activity that has resulted in such devastation to a sizeable area of Japan.

View of Japan and the Aleutian Arc from the USGS highlighting the activity in Japan over the past few days 

Given that the program is provided by Google you would expect easy integration with resources online; Websites (or lecturers) can provide a .kml file for download to show a certain feature (glacier, mountain, fault, volcano etc...). While the program itself features further third party features, such as images of natural wonder (and animal migrating) or a factor of human life being put under threat (such as global warming). What is missing though, considering that seeing something in the field is a lot better than in a textbook, is geological field localities; people could virtually visit Hutton’s unconformity to learn about geological time, or explore the Barrovian district of Scotland to learn about metamorphism. These resources may be specialised but similar ones exist for biosciences and conservation; why not geology? The perfect science for Google Earth.  


Brief Footnote:
http://geosociety.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/where-on-google-earth-219/
Great post about a nice little online game to play

Myths in Geoscience

As the oldest, and in some eyes the best way of telling a story Myths were powerful methods of communicating  science, to an audience without education (or limited science education) in time when science was considerably less well understood, in essences a myth is the first form of (geo) science communication. So let’s look at some examples and how they portray geological reality into stories and traditions of people.

The GSL recently (well, in 2007) published some papers on geology and mythology, which specific examples presented below are derived from.

Within Greek mythology Poseidon acted as both the earth shaker  and the king of floods, from a geological point of view the link between a shaking earth and raging water is a clear one; today known as a Tsunami. The form of Poseidon was a personification to fill-in an unseen force.  When geological events are intertwined with important historical evidence, such as the parting of the red sea, which has been attributed to wind, tide (Voltzinger &Androsov 2003) and seismic activity (there are a series of normal faults running down the valley). A group of wandering ancient peoples with limited understanding of earth’s processes are going to attribute an event that goes in their favour towards a God like figure – the same as the Greeks and Poisedian’s involvement in Tsunamis.

Changes in the biota, such as the growth of Plankton in rivers and lakes altering the colour of the water were taken to be blood; ancient peoples would have no idea about the growth of planktonic animals so attributing the bloodening of watercourses to a God’s displeasure.  A change from the normal was taken to herald bad events forthcoming, which was quickly taken to be the God’s displeasure... not unlike the position of Churches through the ages. Given that God was in those un-secular times viewed as the source and end point for everything on earth (and previously and presently in polytheistic religions numerous deities) it seems sensible that activities in the natural world would be applied to a supernatural being. 

Mythology and tradition are not things to be lampooned however; after the disastrous eruption of Lake Nyos, Cameroon, in 1986 resulted in 1700 locals dead as deadly carbon dioxide suffocated people and livestock as they slept. Traditional mythology and stories told by the elders ethnic groups of surrounding villages stated that houses should be built on stilts, advice that proved to save many a life.

So, what does this mean towards communicating geoscience?  It's no coincidence that TV programs and books popularizing geoscience (Fortey's brilliant Earth and Neil's great Super-continent) tell geology in terms of a story, beginning with the Earth's formation and ending up, after many an extinction, orogeny and a dinosaur with man. TV programs are fairly similar, following scientists discoveries (Men of Rock; BBC) or the manner in which the geological puzzle was unraveled (Earth Story, BBC and How the Earth was Made, History Channel); both are provided in a manner that relates it to people; exactly like a myth. 


How then, are we to communicate the big pressing Climatic Issue? via stories of people? - this assumes that we are going to let millions loose land and livelihood in flooding, and hurricanes tear up cities in order to provide those stories. Simply humanizing predictions does not have the same affect as stories of past devastation nor does presenting people with dry facts is neither inspiring or interesting - there needs to be body, life and excitement in a story, aspects which aren't always present in climate science