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.   

Ignorance is Bliss

‘Ignorance is bliss’

As geoscientist we have the idea that exploring the earth for its resources, secrets and good lunch spots is an important endeavour, many feel that the knowledge we have accrued can be passed on, but does it need to be? And is it required?

A dancer, whom I must agree is unlikely to share a similar wavelength to myself might just consider that knowing how new oceans are made, or how we get platinum out of the ground into a nice shiny ring is not important, but a knowledge of early 80’s progressive dance is... it is a matter of opinion. Everyone has opinions based on circumstance, upbringing, personal beliefs – it’s a good thing, a world of uniform drones is not an inviting prospect.

Equally, as a geoscientist I have (or feel I at least ought to have) a detailed knowledge of specific geological processes, but stick me with two physicist friends from back home and I’m lost, it’s not that I have no working knowledge of physics (despite was my A-Levels say) it’s simply that they have wandered down the path of nuclear physics and momentum a damn sight further than I have. If I was to strike up a conversation of metasomatic metamorphism I would have two confused, probably uninterested faces.

So how can the public be lured into an interest of the geosciences? Do they need to be? Should the general public be involved in decisions which require a substancial interest and knowledge of the geosciences?

In my opinion, which I believe is the reason for a blog, there is no need to lure people into knowledge, more than any other time in human history knowledge is widely accessible; I know, that as I write this I could if I desired find out how an air conditioning unit works, the (public) library has a stash of books, the internet is overflowing with pieces. If someone doesn’t understand how an earthquake works why do they need to? How will it benefit them in their daily life? People choose to watch a program on the geosciences; they choose to read an article on the earth. What else do they choose to expand their knowledge on?

Wikipedia, although much lampooned is arguably a major source of peoples information they receive, it is the fifth most popular website on the planet (BBC News) articles are simple to find, easy to read and cover virtually anything. The site helpfully charts its most popular articles; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_read_articles_in_2010.  Global Warming, is without a doubt, a major, if not the most challenging problem facing mankind, a potentially misunderstood and misguided challenge that many people don’t understand. So logically these people would want to use Wikipedia to expand their knowledge.

Not so, in 2010 ‘Global Warming’ was the 74th most read article, with 18,190 (or 0.01% of readership), above it was ‘List of sex positions’ (22,200), Eminem (26,870) and Michael Oher (an American football player, 20,490). Even the big environmental story of the year, the disastrous Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill came in 34th (with 27,850) with 1/3 of the readership of ‘Lady Gaga’ (65,500). In fact science as a whole is wildly under-read, considering some of the great articles available. No ‘pure’ science subjects make it into the top 1000 articles, this is on the the 5^th most popular site on earth, a major source. To put it bluntly people want to know more about organs and orifices than they do about any aspect of orogeny.

It’s not just science that is overlooked, important historical events and even countries are wholly overlooked; World War 1 is below ‘Sexual Intercourse’, the Soviet Union sits below Arney. Most shockingly perhaps AIDS, the worlds 4th biggest killer (www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wp02/wp02-02.pdf) is relegated to 339th (8,920) position; below ‘Ejaculation’ & the brilliant, but somewhat less important band ‘Avenged Sevenfold’. 


Now of course, Wikipedia is subject to people spamming and perhaps is not a perfect profile of the world population, but still this is a concerning thought!

The majority of the public own some form of computer, but very few actually know how the thing works, more still own a mobile phone, but the limit of knowledge on the technical abilities of what happens when you press ‘send’ is fairly low. Why should geoscientists request a public audience, when aspects of people’s lives which demand a greater proportion of their time, money and effort are still mystical whizzing boxes? The answer could be that the geosciences offer solutions and problems which affect everyone; a faulty phone model is only going to affect the people who buy, sell and made it, an earthquake does not discriminate against those with understanding of the processes.

Here in the UK though, we don’t have earthquakes in any magnitude, so knowledge of their processes is more a curiosity, an interest if you like of the few; rather than in the case of a pop-star or film a more mainstream interest. Global Warming, though will affect us all. People need to know –but do they want to know? Looking at Wikipedia, they don’t, looking on the pavement, they don’t: A random sample of 10 people walking past my house at 7pm on a Friday night (party animal that I am) people are concerned about Global Warming (80%) but none wanted to talk to me about it. Either because I am a crazy person or they didn’t care enough to stop (or they thought I was going to give a lecture, which to be fair I was). Think about it, virtually everyone is against animal cruelty, but only 5% of people in the UK do not eat animals, (Food Standard Agency) millions of people have dogs, of equal intelligence to pigs, but would never think of munching on Fido.

People care about the climate or the earth, but maybe do not want to know the intricate details, or only want to know when it suits them, when their town has been flooded. Maybe, like many, they are scared and would rather be ignorant to the problem, happy to assist, turn off the light when they leave the room and try not to think about it.