Answers on a postcard - Yahoo! Answers and Communicating geosciences.

Yahoo! Answers is a community driven question and answer service; the idea being that everyone answers each other’s questions and provides a wholesome and driven series of answers to everyday questions. Yahoo! Is the 4th most visited site in North America and it’s answers service, set up in 2005, is clearly displayed on the sites homepage. It’s difficult to judge it’s popularity, but Google records that it has 1/36th of the amount of searches for Yahoo! Answers compared to Wikipedia – the large numbers of questions point towards a fairly busy site; which runs questions from all facets of life – including geoscience.


So what benefit does this site (and many others) have in terms of communicating geoscience?

'The Core' has an awful lot to answer for

Well, it would be great to have exposure of the geological sciences and a Q&A site that could provide honest, well researched sensible scientific information would be valuable as a method of getting the public direct and efficient answers. I’ve already touched upon how the Geol Soc of London has done a similar (although infinitely better researched) Q & A service. How does Yahoo! Answers fair as a method of geology and public involvement?

I really hope this was a joke.... or poorly placed

The site has a huge amount of information available to users with a variety of different knowledge levels, anyone can sign up – and answer any question. Questions continue to be available on the web after the ‘closing date’ – and regularly appear on more inane online searches. Questions can be asked on anything, so have a wide variety; from ‘what is the weight of the earth?’ to ‘Will the world exist in 2012’. Answers can be given by anyone (although newer users have limited questions per/day) – which is the main problem. Some people, it turns out can be idiots...


Although Wikipedia has been lampooned for its public involvement and problems with correct data, it is nothing at all, in comparison with Yahoo! Answers. The results to people’s questions are not checked (except for rude words etc) and therefore any answer can stand; which results for a lot of questions creationism wriggling in, which given the context of some of these questions the ‘asker’ may well end up feeling is a decent answer. Yahoo has utilised various Celebrities an public figures to stimulate questions; alongside featured questions which are highlighted as good examples – but these are in the minority.

Hopefully not - although it will wipe off my student loan

Good answers are awarded ‘points’ which don’t mean prizes, simply numbers; so there is no fiscal reason to give good answers – therefore any involvement is purely out of peoples good heartedness. Good heartedness, however does not make up for a lack of a of knowledge; which does result in answers being, often, complete rubbish – or (in my opinion) worse, with plenty within Earth Sciences that utilise Creationism, allowing pseudoscience to can get an foot in the door alongside more intelligent answers (there are a couple). This does allow for the old ‘let the public decide’ ideas about our Earth’s history but requires decent science to be in attendance. Plus, it appears that many people (probably children) are simply putting homework onto the site, which disregards the studying they could be doing, finding out more about their world rather than simply watching (often stupid) answers appear on their screen.


However, I have found some positive gems about the service – since anyone can present a question, the variety of questions out there is brilliant and some answers are good – although they are virtually all lifted from Wikipedia, which is probably more accurate than Yahoo! Answers – but still not centred in geological organisations.


What use is Yahoo! Answers then? Beneficial or not?


The lack of expert opinion severely hurts the site, it is, very often the blind (or at least hideously mislead) leading the blind – in this sense the service could be doing more harm than good – but what if a mainstream, useful and esteemed geological organisation got involved? Would that be worth it?


Well, they could be involved in giving decent, correct and useful information to these answers; a ‘live’ version of the GSL’s ‘Ask a Geologist’ page or a similar service to Yahoo Answers on a proper site; where answers are vetoed, to ensure that useless and incorrect answers are not displayed, could be beneficial. Although, this sort of thing already half exists; the USGS offers plenty of email contacts, which give prompt responses (having emailed them myself, not about something ridiculous though) – and are from people who actually know what they are talking about. Alternatively, many answers could be answered via a simple Google search via pre-existing answers – it would have taken the asker considerably less time to have performed a Google Search rather than placed the question on Yahoo! Answers. So, in conclusion, Yahoo Answers is not a viable manner of communicating geosciences (or in fact any science) and the time that could be utilised by geological organisations using the site would simply be a waste of time.

Children’s TV & Science ... the missed link

It’s Easter holidays here which set me wondering, children do not just learn about the world from the classroom, they learn about it from being outside, the media and their parents. From my childhood memories I don’t recall visiting too many geological sites, we went to plenty of museums, but frankly Sussex hardly abounds with interesting Geological sites (actually 

seeing a rock is an event) so what does the media provide?

In the UK there is a whole host of children’s TV channels, the two main ones running from 7am until 7pm are CBBC (run by the partially state owned BBC) and CITV (run by Independent broadcasting funded via adverts). There are also channels only available via satellite or cable – but since they are not available to all homes and feature virtually nothing of value I’ll ignore them

So, what’s on TV?

On CBBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/watch/whatson/, today, the 13^th of April children could enjoy 2hrs 50 of ‘The Legend of Dick and Dom’ which is about as wholesome as a Happy Meal and features nothing of value, let alone educational value. 3 episodes of ‘Arthur’, a variety of light drama interspersed by news.   A virtually identical story is present with tomorrows planning; although that does include 30 minutes of nature programming in the form of ‘deadly 60’ a Steve Irwin inspired search for animals that can kill you. The Children’s programming does not just infect a channel it also spills over onto the BBC’s flagship channel, that actually has some science, ‘Blast Lab’ which is a sort of experiments show – dealing mainly with making a mess via the mediums of physics and chemistry

On CITV, the story is equally poor,

http://www.citv.co.uk/page.asp?partid=31 for today, the 13^th of April,

No box of wholesome scientific programming for children here!

from 6am to 6pm children can watch; Fireman Sam (maybe he sorts out a volcano? ), ‘The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That’ – ‘that’ appears to be magical adventures. Just under an hour of Pokémon, bit of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, two hours of ‘Horrid Henry’, ‘Almost Naked Animals’  and ‘Atomic Betty’ ... all in all no scientific TV.

So, between the two major children’s TV channels there is only one hour of science program, within the Easter holidays where it can be expected that the channel will enjoy significant viewership (partially today as there is some cloud over the UK). Now of course it is holidays, but surely children should have more educational program, science as a whole is such a brilliant subject so much more exciting and interesting that bloody Pokémon or ‘Dick and Dom’.  

Alternatively the channel could use this time to teach children to cook, healthy eating, community guidelines – areas which are important but ignored. Even history, typically an area of great stories and plenty of blood and disease has been replaced by rubbish.

Within mainstream TV the BBC has a world renowned record for producing brilliant nature, travel and scientific programming – children’s programming; arguably an important part of a child’s development is left to be a variety of worthless programmes.  When I was younger (many moons ago....) there was a brilliant nature program ‘The Really Wild Show’ I can still remember some of the information shared on that program, it won a host of awards – but now is gone; what will children watching TV today know? Little of science, nature or history. Originally, I had intended that I would find a children’s TV program that was fairly scientific and write a brief post on it, I am dismayed that no such program, geological or otherwise exists.

Future Scientists?
Image source: The Telegraph

The BBC (I’ve given up with ITV – they never produce anything worth watching anyway) does run a children’s news program, named ‘Newsround’ which airs from between 2 and 10 minutes (not to get in the way of quality resourceful programming). It covers essentially the same stories as the ‘adult’ news, but in a more child friendly way, well the service had, of course reported the Japanese quake and terrifying tsunami. It has given simple, pleasant descriptions and even a demonstration (from a different BBC program, but still useful) which can give interested children information into a fascinating phenomenon... but Newsround also has to cover news, sport, celebrity rubbish and whatever else – in a maximum of 10 minutes; severely stunting its usefulness.  From volunteering within events where children are present they do have an interest in natural sciences and geosciences, so why is an interest that could evolve into a passion being denied information at such a young age? Quite simply it is irresponsible of both the BBC and ITV to not include factual, useful children’s programming within their broadcast. 

People Power

In previous posts I’ve looked at how geoscience either does or doesn’t interact with people, well now it’s time to look the other way – how organisations get people involved geoscience.  The benefits, both in terms of outreach and research are great.

GSA – Geological Survey of America has its own outreach page: http://www.geosociety.org/educate/ that features the areas to get involved with a number of 

projects – the two that are more suited to the interested, general public are:

EarthCache ‘Geocaching adventures with an geoscience twist.’ – Geocaching is a cross between orienteering and treasure hunting using GPS points, commonly they are small boxes or jars that include an object, anyone who find the box/jar can remove the object – as long as they replace it with something else.  The EarthCache is different, rather than an object, ‘their treasure is the lessons people learn about our planet when they visit the site.’ There are around 10500 different ‘EarthCaches’ and the site is enthusiastic towards the public, each Cache has an individual article written in simple(ish) language, with plenty of information and easy to follow step by step instructions as how to access the sites – it’s almost university fieldwork, but without the debt.

Understandably, there is a significant skew towards American sites, but there is a generous helping of European destinations – including a decent amount of German ones.  This is a brilliant example of outreach, it’s cheap to run, very varied, has a community aspect to it, gets geoscience into people’s mind via an esteemed society.  However this sort of outreach is fairly subtle, the whole idea of GeoCaching is that you have to look for the objects, they are 

by definition hidden and therefore people have to need to know that this project exists.

If running around isn’t for you though, The GSA has partnered with a staggering number of geological surveys and societies to develope ‘EarthTrek’ http://www.goearthtrek.com/ it’s also on the ever popular Twitter (although, with a less that staggering 47 followers). At present it is running a series of different projects to use ‘citizens’ as collectors of important data to track Gravestone erosion using kit that a large proportion of society may well have (GPS receiver, callipers). This gives people a double edged interest – some people may be interested in the artistry of the stones, others in the demographics, others in the composition themselves – this is a great project with a scientific (and environmental) aim

EarthTrek also runs a Quake Catcher Network http://www.goearthtrek.com/QCN/QCN.html, utilising the public in tracking and monitoring Earthquakes, similar schemes are worldwide, such as the UK School Seismology Project, run by the BGS, which utilised seismometers, installed in schools across the country to interest children in seismicity – in a fairly geological inactive country. These schemes are highly worthwhile, they allow children to see how real scientists study the globe, in areas of more tectonism they can be used to discuss hazards (ultimately saving lives). Going further than this, more technological laptops and desktops, within their hard drives have a small motion sensor (in order to minimise damage when dropped) can be used as micro-seismographs in a global network  to track earthquakes globally. Not only is this useful for research, it allows large sectors of the community, to if they wish get involved in what is often viewed to be a mysterious science.

Looking back to this side of the pond, the Geological Society of London, has involvement in other areas, it has a diverse number of pleasant to listen to podcasts, specifically designed to be listened to on personal media devices (or as everyone else calls them ‘ipods’). ‘casts’ include important, but often misunderstood aspects of the geosciences. The Society also has produced a nice little document, aimed at children, discussing how geology is important to people’s lives or how resources are trapped and extracted.

However, good although these resources are, they are not exhibited in full light on the societies website – and besides, as I’ve already demonstrated in earlier posts – people do not use societies to get knowledge. If you want to know about an aspect of chemistry, do you go on Wikipedia or pop along the Royal Society of Chemistry?  

Falling Short of the Park

Recently the South Downs in Southern England became a National Park, granting the region a boost to tourism, altered planning regulations and plenty of new signs (amongst other things). The new national park has a website, designed to both attract visitors and give local people more information about, what is in essence their local authority.

http://www.southdowns.gov.uk

The National Park Authority

Geologically, the South Downs National Park are an area of Chalk, Early Cretaceous clays and sandstones folded by the Wealden anticline during the Cenezoic. The actual ‘downs’ themselves are the remains of the chalk cover that once stretched across the Weald to just south of London. So, what does the website (and therefore we can assume most of the paperwork) from Britain’s newest National Park have to say about the rocks?

Well firstly, where is Geology on the site? Logically it would be accessible under Learning, which it is, but within that subsection it is hidden under the unexciting ‘Themes to Study’ – not exactly going to entice too many people into the regions geology. The site blurts on about the beautiful landscape – but seems to hide the factors behind the landscapes formation.

‘To really appreciate the South Downs landscape you need to understand how it was formed.’ South Downs National Park Site

Apparently, Most of the rocks that make up the South Downs were formed 120 million years ago – which is odd as Seaford Head, a promontory within the chalk is in fact the stratigraphic boundary between the Santonian and Campanian - 83 million years ago. While stratigraphically the lowest rocks in the new National Park, the Wealden Clay are considered post-Tithonian/pre W Aptian in age or for those without beards, 151-125Ma. In fact only the Lower Greensand and Weald Clay are the only rocks in the park’s boundaries that could be considered to have for. The site’s very own stratigraphic column even places  only the lower units around the 120 Ma mark!

Coast of the National Park - an iconic image

Moving on from the bigger picture, what about the individual units... as something that actually got me into geology in the first place. Flints...

‘Flint was formed from the skeletons of minute animals, such as radiolarians, that floated around in those ancient seas.’

Firstly, very few people know what a ‘radiolarian’ is, I’ve touched upon this within the GSL Q&A page; ‘remains of tiny creatures’ would have been better. Secondly, there is a lot of debate as to the generation of flint –it took me a good few minutes to track down a digestible paper – which indicates that the flint was formed via microbacterial activity. Surely it is more exciting to the reader to just be honest, say you don’t know, or give a couple of theories (wherever they may be hiding)

‘20 million years – The Alpine Storm’

Maybe the first time orogenic activity has been viewed as a ‘storm’ – a completely useless term – meaning too many other things (weather, political etc) to be of use to anyone! The document goes onto place the Himalayas as being due to the Africa’s convergence with Eurasia. It then gets the order of diagenesis wrong (anticline formed THEN diagenesis – which is absurd – brittle faulting, was in action during the uplift).

What does this site say then, about geoscience communication? Firstly, it is difficult to get to, a casual observer wandering round the site is unlikely stumble upon the page on geology; and when they do information is not correct. The geology of the area is fascinating enough, without the need for incorrect data. 

Language Barrier

Recently I was doing a little bit of fieldwork in Cyprus and having successfully mastered two words of Greek, my interest was ignited in how geological organisations deal with multiple tongues in the regions they serve.

So, the BGS

The diverse site has bountiful English language resources – as expected. But what about the other languages that are present in the UK? In Wales (making up 3 million of the 62 million people living in the UK) , 21% of the population speak Welsh, the only Celtic language that enjoys official status (BBC) yet there is no provision for the welsh language on the BGS site, nor is there provision for Punjab – the second most spoken language in the UK. In terms of interest for tourists or foreign researchers (In French, German, Spanish etc) the BGS give no provision. Although legally and practically English is the primary language of the UK should it not be, that in a multicultural, prosperous country with a world leading geological survey, that a full provision for the languages spoke in a country is provided?

USGS

Looking across the pond the USGS does slightly better, although the vast majority of the information is solely in English,  the service does offer a page of information related to earthquake risk in Spanish and a series of Asian  languages – although many of the diagrams are still in English. This is very much a token gesture; 35 million Americans speak Spanish as their primary language (over 1% of the population) with the majority in the more tectonically active southern states (34.72% of the population of California speak Spanish). The fact that the data released is one of earthquake safety clearly indicates that the USGS is utilising its resources for educating people against seismic risks – something that can only be good.

In terms of geoscience outreach, the USGS however is not doing well, for all the 36,000 pages on the USGS website having two in other languages hardly could be reprehensive of population. California is one of the most interesting geological places on earth – shouldn’t everybody be able to enjoy the State’s geology? A whole sector of the community is being ignored by the geosciences.

Canada:

Bilingual Canada has, on the other hand a high amount of bilingual speakers, with both French and English widely spoken and taught (27 % of the population). It should, and does, follow that the Canadian Geological Survey should present its information in billlingual format, which it does: http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/index_e.php and http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/index_f.php.  Both sites seem roughly comparable (there is some functional differences, but the information is there) and indicate the importance to Canada for an enviable bilingual society.

So, should a countries geological survey have bi or tri language sites? Within the UK we can have a whole range of government documents in multiple languages – surely it follows that publically funded bodies should be presented in multiple languages too? If road signs are in Welsh why shouldn’t information regarding geosciences be too?  Should it not be, that Spanish speakers can enjoy their states geology in their tongue – just like their fellow citizens. 

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.   

Time to Learn?

After my last post on a brief session at museum whereby I was involved in discussing geosciences with some children it seemed important to review, what children are taught in the geosciences in order to fit events and outreach into knowledge that the children already have.

 Assuming that children have no prior interest (so have not read anything into it, or have a scary obsession with dinosaurs) so that their geological knowledge extends to that they’ve learnt in the class  room.  As luck would have it, my mother is primary school teacher and I’m back home before a little jaunt off to Cyprus, the house is full of a wealth of books for the education of children, it seemed interesting to see how these publications discuss geological issues.

Trend, 1998 found that children (10 to 11) identified geological time as being composed of two different timeframes, ‘Extremely ancient’ and ‘less ancient’ quite what the timings of these are remain a mystery. However, this introduces the question of what we as geologists should use in terms of geological timing. During outreach events (or similar), where student or professional geologists may be acting, our understanding of geological time is so commonplace, so accepted within our lives that we don’t find the need to water it down to perhaps the level it should be displayed at; practically when discussing ideas with children.

Children also have trouble fitting piecing together geological time (Trend, 2000) which leads to problems when we are trying to explain how a landscape developed or the progression of life through time. Stratigraphy is a vital area of the geosciences hence its early discussion within university courses. How can geological time be brought to children – when there have limited fundamental understanding of the concepts involved?

Perhaps for these reasons geology, as taught within Key Stage 2 avoids geological time – instead discussing the composition of the earth, in terms of layers and the composition of rocks. The rock cycle is also included – with no consideration for the timescales behind it.

Therefore, if the children have never encountered deep time, to a child, a long time ago might be last Christmas, not the Mesozoic. Why therefore do we even try to utilise geological time with children? At the outreach event I last posted on we had posters with the geological timescale on it, we gave away cards with the timescale on it – even trying to put the local geology into a timescale. Clearly it was not a worthy cause, I had wondered why I was getting polite but completely blank faces – the children simply  had nothing to base what we were saying on.

Should we then even bother discussing ‘deep’ time when working with children? Well, either we try to educate children during any contact time into geological time (probably neither practical or even possible) or we simply leave it out – tie ourselves in with the national curriculum. This produces the risk of young minds not having a non theistic timescale set in stone, or a challenge to a preconceived theistic idea set in motion at a young age – surely, for the promotion of ‘mainstream’ geosciences and for the ease of future education introducing the geological time scale at a young age is beneficial? It’s just how to do it that’s the problem!

References:

Trend, R, (1998) Investigation into understanding of geological time among 10- and 11- year old children, International Journal of Science Education, 20, pp 973-988

Trend, R. (2000) Conceptions of geological time among primary trainee teachers, with reference to their engagement with geosciences, history and science, International Journal of Science Education,22 (5), pp 539-555