Re: Earth Science Honors
From: John or Jan Lahr (johnjan@lahr.org)
Date: Mon Nov 08 2004 - 06:38:03 PST
Message-Id: <6.1.1.1.2.20041108065628.0246c9d8@mail.comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 07:38:03 -0700
From: John or Jan Lahr <johnjan@lahr.org>
Subject: Re: Earth Science Honors
Hi Cindy,
One way to make earth science more exciting is to make it more relevant
to
current events and make it something that you are excited about.
This
excitement can be quite contagious.
Kids are interested in earthquakes and volcanoes, and with
today's technology it's quite easy to actually run a seismograph station
right
at the school that will record large earthquakes from around the world
(as well
as local activity should there be any near you.) IRIS (an
NSF-funded
consortium of research universities) offers one-day workshops for
teachers at
NSTA meetings. These teachers may then apply to receive a
seismograph
station worth $600 for their classroom or school. About 90 have
been provided
during the past few years.
With Internet access becoming more and more common, teachers are
starting
to post their seismic records on the web in near-real time. This
makes it easy
to see how a given large earthquake was recorded across the US.
http://jclahr.com/science/psn/as1/heli/allas1.html
and how "your" record
compares with others recorded by the same type of instrument.
There is more information about the IRIS Seismographs in Schools program on
the IRIS web site:
http://www.iris.washington.edu/edu/AS1.htm
There's nothing better than having a current, newsworthy earthquake that
has been recorded by your own instrument to provide a "teachable
moment" for plate tectonics, convection, waves, and earth structure.
It's also a context within which to teach such physics concepts as
friction, elasticity, energy transformation, and magnetic induction, to
name a few. Algebra, geometry, and geography are also involved.
Then there are the general science skills, such as using technology,
making observations, keeping a log of observations, etc.
This year I visited some of the teachers who are running seismic
stations and have posted a few pictures here, which will give you
some idea of what may be involved:
http://jclahr.com/science/earth_science/iris_2004/
Cheers,
John Lahr
At 04:27 AM 11/8/2004, you wrote:
I agree with this last posting. Although it would be great to see more honors classes in earth science, It's hard to see it happening in my system at this point. This is my second year teaching 8th grade, but my 12th year of teaching. I agree that the interest just doesn't seem to be there. Our system basically relies on 8th grade as the "earth science year" and I'm not sure why they've chosen this grade. The interest level is ok, but they certainly don't seem to find it "riveting"! It just seems that earth science topics are not what kids are most curious about. Are there any suggestions as to how this could be changed? What is the general feeling about teaching through a more integrated science curriculum - i.e. teaching oceanography coupled with marine biology? What can we do to make earth science more interesting to kids in middle and high school?
Thanks
Cindy Ripley
CK Ripley
Gallagher Middle School
Smithfield RI 02917
- Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 9:54 PM
- Subject: Re: Earth Science Honors
- I also would like to see more honors earth science classes. At the school I teach at earth science is just an elective. There are only enough students taking this class this year to warrent 2 classes of 21 kids each! A little over half of these students are ones who need some sort of physical science class to graduate and they think this one will be much easier then physical science (which many have already failed), chemisty or physics). I wish earth science had a better standing and that it was required everywhere, esp. to the point where honors classes are warrented. It's too bad that earth science is seen as boring and worthless by most students (as I have seen anyways). Keep it up and hopefully that will change.
-
- Mrs. Heather Bessman
- Science Teacher
- Waterloo West High School
- Waterloo, IA
- hbessman@yahoo.com
##################################/ John C. Lahr
#################################/ Emeritus Seismologist
################################/ U.S. Geological Survey
===========================/ Geologic Hazards Team, MS966
##############################/ PO Box 25046
#############################//##############################
############################//###############################
Denver, Colorado 80225-0046 /################################
Phone: (303) 215-9913 /=============================
Fax: (303) 273-8540 /##################################
lahr@usgs.gov /###################################
/####################################
http://jclahr.com/science/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3
: Mon Aug 01 2005 - 16:06:45 PDT