[Geochemwksp] Min/Pet/Geochem Teaching Collections

[Mogk, David]

Hi Folks, I hope you're all finishing your spring terms with a modicum
of grace and that you're looking forward to a great summer. Before you
put away your course materials for the term, please consider
contributing your best teaching assignments to the on-line activity
collections. You can access the "Contribute a Resource" service at the
bottom of this page of references for teaching mineralogy, petrology and
geochemistry:
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/petrology/elements.html

Select the topic (min, pet, or geochem) that best fits your exercise,
provide the requested information, and simply upload the files (Word,
PPT, Excel, etc.). The whole process shouldn't take more than 15 minutes
or so.

 

These semi-annual requests for contributions have resulted in only a few
new exercises being posted since the workshops (and thanks to those of
you who have responded).  But, it's pretty clear that ad hoc
contributions won't meet the larger community needs. Which leads me to
an essential question:  Given the current funding situation, it's
apparent that the large, catalytic workshops in a given topic will only
take place about once per decade. So, how can we best continue to "grow"
the collections and keep them up to date with the best science and
instructional practices?  And, we also need advice about the most
critical resources you need-on what topics, what types of activities
(field, lab, experiment, analytical), etc.?  Here are some ideas about
"how" to grow the collections:

*         Conduct focused writing/working workshops. These would be
invited events where authors would be recruited to contribute teaching
activities as parts of a greater whole. This is what we did for the
Teaching Phase Equilibria module
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/equilibria/index.html and
Analytical Instruments and Techniques "primers":
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/geochemsheets/index.html .
However, Cutting Edge doesn't currently have funding for this type of
activity, but I could try to secure additional external funding.

*         "Virtual" writing workshops:  organize writing groups around a
topic of interest, agree to meet periodically for on-line group sessions
to discuss, display, and review our work; this would use wiki-like
technology, something like GoToMeeting software, etc.  Not quite the
same feeling as face-to-face, but still a focused group effort.

*         Participation in a pre- or post- meeting associated with a
major meeting (AGU, GSA, Goldschmidt, etc.).  Come a day early or stay a
day late to meet with a working/writing group to develop plans for
curricular materials on Topic X; participants define the scope of the
project, assign tasks, we all go home and write-up our assignments,
engage follow-up on-line discussions, review etc. towards  posting the
final product.

 

What is the next most important type of instructional materials we need
to support teaching Min/Pet/Geochem?  Fill in the blank:  I really need
an exercise that demonstrates__________; I'd like to teach about
_____________, but need the materials to help me get started.   Since
the workshops, how has teaching MPG changed, and what are the current
needs?  Here are some ideas about the focus for next generation
Mini/Pet/Geochem instructional resources:

*	Dex Perkins and I have been talking about the need for a set of
visualizations to accompany most of our problem sets (including images
and graphs with annotations, simulations, animations.....). Our students
are learning differently, and my recent experience is that the students
really need to see dynamic examples of geologic process (e.g. the
animated PDFs Dex and John Brady made for binary and ternary phase
diagrams).  Would it be useful to put together a specific collection of
min/pet/geochem visualizations to accompany existing (or new) teaching
activities?
*	Using Data and Modeling:  EarthChem, Melts, ThermoCalc, etc all
are extremely powerful research resources, and could also be great
instructional tools as well. We've made a start with EarthChem
(http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/cyberinfrastructure/index.h
tml ).  But can we further develop the use of these on-line databases,
and related modeling programs to enhance learning?  Is there a group out
there willing to help us create mo' better activities?
*	Min/Pet/Geochem across the curriculum.  Using the fundamentals
from these disciplines, can we better demonstrate their application to
related fields to help affirm the centrality and importance of MPG in
the geo-curriculum?  Characterization of detrital minerals related to
sedimentary provenance: asbestos and public health; PTt paths and
tectonics; aqueous geochemistry environmental issues...?

 

Please let me know what types of activities you would consider
participating in (as described above, or other), and what topics or
resources are needed to help keep the Min/Pet/Geochem sites current and
vital. Send me a note directly (mogk at montana.edu), or respond to the
listserv.  I need to report to the Cutting Edge team next Wednesday.
What can we do to help given limited budgets?

 

Also, FYI, we hope to update all the posted activities in the MPG
teaching collections in the early summer-updating the cover
ActivitySheets, reviewing all the activities to make sure the
information is current and complete, etc.   We could use some help doing
a general review of the existing exercises...drop me a line if you can
help.

 

Thanks to all for your input. 

Rock On!

Dave Mogk

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