The Wonderful Ways of MikeC

Before the beginning of this year I am not sure what I would have said the “Big Picture” in Earth science actually was. When we started out this program, our very first reading was on “The Five Big Ideas of Science” (or something like that) and they determined that the theory of plate tectonics was the “Big Idea” for the geosciences. While I agree that tectonics is instrumental in explaining the world that we live in today I still do not like this as THE “Big Idea”, let alone the big picture.

If my very spotty memory serves me well I believe that the discovery of the atom was the “Big Idea” for chemistry. This I would have to agree with. The big idea and picture of chemistry is that everything we see on earth and the universe can be explained at the atomic level. This, according to my mentor J.C. (not Jesus), is the one thing students should come away with after taking regents chemistry. In regards to Earth science, I hope that the equivalent to “our atom” is not plate tectonics.

The root of the Big Picture and Idea of Earth science though does lie within the realm of plate tectonics (or in reality plate tectonics lies in the realm of it). DENSITY and HEAT TRANSFER. While starting the project of concept mapping Earth science, my knee jerk reaction was to try and revolve the year around the theme of density differences. The idea was to take this big picture that be introduced at the beginning of the year and constantly added to as the year progressed.

I posted this “Density as the big idea” concept map on ESPIRT(the Earth science listserv) to see what teachers and professors from around the country thought. Several members came up with ideas of how to modify this big idea and some flat out said it was wrong. Others pointed me to folks (one of whom is a doctoral student at Warner: J.H.) who were trying to the same thing; create an ES curriculum around a central theme or big idea.

One individual was particularly helpful and pointed me in the direction of the Pennsylvania Standards Aligned system in which he helped develop. These are the big ideas in ES according to the great state of Pennsylvania:

1) The Earth is composed of a number of dynamic interacting systems which exchange matter and/or energy.
2) The geosphere is subdivided into layers defined by physical properties.
3) The atmosphere is a dynamic system changing over short and long time intervals.
4) The hydrosphere contains all of the water on Earth.
5) The biosphere is the life zone of the Earth and includes all organisms, including humans, and all organic matter that has not yet decomposed.
6) The Earth is part of a solar system which is part of the universe.
7) Understanding the Earth depends upon science and technology.

While I believe that these are not one “big idea”, I feel that Big Idea 1 could be it if they changed the word Earth, to Universe.

This process of concept mapping and interacting with the ESPIRT community has been invaluable and will certainly help develop the concept map even further. I recommend this to every group in the cohort.

The website where I obtained the Big Ideas of Earth Science is located here and has a break down of every content area.

They also include essential questions and key vocabulary.

Here all the essential questions for ES:

1) How are the interactions among Earth’s systems measured?
2) How is the internal structure of the Earth organized and classified?
3) In what ways do changes in its atmosphere affect the Earth?
4) What roles do reservoirs and water transfer play in weather, climate variation, and temperature moderation?
5) In what way do living things on the planet affect the Earth?
6) What is known about the Earth’s place in the universe?
7) How do science and technology contribute to an understanding of the Earth?

Check out the site, it is pretty cool.

The USGS website has endless resources for us science teachers (especially those teaching Earth science). I was milling around there this morning and stumbled upon a really cool resource that could potentially be useful as well as interesting.

The USGS offers free quadrangle maps (jpeg images) of cities throughout NY as well as New England. This could be useful in showing how cities like Rochester have grown and expanded since 1893. This would allow for us Earth science teachers to tie in other issues and subject areas while studying topographic maps.

Here are some of the quads:

1893 (SW corner of Rochester)

1920 (SW corner of Rochester)

“Modern Day” (1978) Current maps can be found here

This tectonic activity serves as a great teachable moment for us earth science teachers and demonstrates why earth science is important (it is just too bad that in the Earth sciences these lessons are often the product of a disaster).

Here is a good video that breaks down what went on geologically

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Intensity of Shaking

Red is the most extreme

Locations of the five aftershocks following the main quake

Data from Seismometer

Why didn’t this quake cause a tsunami?

The USGS has put together a website that contains pictures of all the National Parks in the United States. These pictures all deal with the local geology of each park and the kicker…….they are also available in 3D for free, all you need are 3D Glasses.

http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/

This week at STARS things went very well and the entire afternoon felt extremely bitter sweet. On one hand, we were having a lot of fun but on the other we realized that this would be the last “standard” meeting of the year. Our girls made comments throughout the entire duration of STARS that they were upset that it was going to be over soon and that they can’t believe how much fun they have had and the friends that they have made. I have to say that I am going to miss working with these girls every week and hope that someday I have the fortune of having students like them in my classroom.

The day started off well with concept mapping. The girls were easily able to complete the concept map and remembered things that even LaToya and I had forgotten. They were very passionate about the information on the concept map and it demonstrated to me the amount of ownership that these girls have with this investigation. After the concept mapping I started taking one student aside at a time to interview them for their final assessments. They all went really well and the girls handled them beautifully. Initially I was nervous about one of our girl’s willingness to participate in the interview because she refuses to be on tape. We came up with a back up for her to answer the questions on my computer which worked very well while also allowing her to feel comfortable.

While these interviews were taking place, LaToya worked with the other girls on putting together things for our tri-fold. It was a very productive day and the girls really had fun. We are all set for the girls to make their tri-folds and practice at their interactive stations for next week.

You can see how things went with our other team at Maeghan’s Blog

STARS today went fairly well. The day started out with an unexpected treat from the teacher who’s room we borrow; DRY ICE. She had a cooler full of dry ice that was going to sublime by the end of the night so said “go nuts with it”. We had so much fun at the beginning of the day doing different experiments with this dry ice. We then connected it to environmental issues by asking the girls what would happen if we shut all the doors and the windows. They answered that we would probably die and we then made the connection between that and petroleum usage, the production of ethanol and global warming.

We then made our girls take a look at the data that was collected this past week from the distilling process, analyze it and organize it in a graph. They were really engaged throughout this process and really did a great job making appropriate graphs. We then prepared them for the video interviews for next week to get them used to the types of questions they are going to be asked.

Our girls really are a lot of fun but at times they seem to be having too much fun and use language that is not appropriate for this type of setting. I am not sure how this can be changed and we need to think about it over this next week. We have literally tried everything and every week they come back sounding like sailors.

Overall it was another fun week and the girls are looking forward to presenting their findings.

This week we are going to take a look at one of the coolest places in the world. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, Shenandoah Nat. Park has a rich tectonic past. This past includes evidence for the Taconic, Acadian and Alleghanian Orogenies as well for the initial rifting of the Atlantic Ocean.

This is a very special place for me. In a perfect world I would end up here.

This picture is of an area riddled with normal faulting that houses the conglomerates that filled forming rift basins during the initial spreading of the Atlantic

A look out into the foothills

ROCKS OLDER THAN MAN……NO WAAAAY

This is the most bad a** rock out there. It is a 1.3 billion year old charnochite that has undergone periods of contact with molten lava…..but……wait for it……shows no evidence for metamorphism. This rock owns lava.

Notebook for scale

Appalachian Trail; looking out from the mountains

The Blue Ridge Mountains

The few, the proud, the men of the Geology Dept.

OOOoooo….. ROTATION OF SIGMA 1 & 3

That’s it for now, Check out Jerry Garcia’s Been All Around the World; the theme song for the Blue Ridge Mnts

I thought that today’s lesson went extremely well and the fact that a news crew was present added some excitement to our group (the news folks chose to follow our group around). The day started out with, for me, the highlight of this STARS experience. The people from the media asked if they could interview two of our girls for a report they were doing on the program. These two girls were somewhat anxious about getting interviewed on camera but my God did they kill these interviews. They explicitly told them of our investigation, what we were trying to do and the implications of our research. I do not think that I could have done a better job than these girls. It was a really neat experience. I have been proud of my students throughout this past year but nothing has compared to the rush of emotion that I felt when those girls were in front of the camera.

After pizza and the interviews we made our way up stairs to a room full of professors (observing both LaToya and I) and news staff. Our girls were initially and understandably intimidated by this large adult presence but quickly got comfortable. Seeing that there is not time to pre-setup demos or activities, you basically have to start running from the get go and it is hard to ask really good questions when you are scrambling to get things set up. It was a very hectic start but I feel that LaToya and I managed the girls and the lesson very well in this beginning portion. After talking with Liz, the professor observing me, she said that in the beginning (first two minutes) I was really focused on getting the P.O.E activity set up and not so much on the “why” type questions. She said that this improved greatly after these first two minutes and I would have to agree. I was really involved with getting the demo set up as quickly as possible while also starting to prep them intellectually for the demo.

The P.O.E density demo with alcohol and water went fantastic. The girls were engaged the entire time and were making great observations and predictions. I really like that we give them worksheets every week so it is easy to follow along and they get into a routine with these P.O.E. activities. They are starting to get really good at them; it is cool to see. I really thought the this demo was great in scaffolding the hydrometer and the kids were showing, through our discussion and writings on their sheets that they understood the principles behind the tool. Disaster, sort of, then struck. I handed the glass hydrometer to one of the girls without telling her how fragile it was. She ever so gently tapped the hydrometer on the table and the waited bottom cracked. This was a very interesting experience for me seeing that the main tool for my lesson just got broken and I have got three professors and a news camera in my face.

I can safely say that I did not freeze and calmly said that the hydrometer was not going to work but that they should make predictions anyways on the back of their sheets. The girls did this and then LaToya started to get them thinking back to the distillation process from last week. The girls all had an easy time remembering the processes involved with distillation and were really excited to get to use such high tech science equipment. The girls were very engaged and while the distillation was going on, I brought students out one at a time for video interviews.

The girls all did a great job today and I am really proud of the way that STARS has progressed thus far. The only problem is that they are a very talkative bunch and needed to be reminded repeatedly to quite down. Most of the time this turns into positive, productive energy but sometimes it is very destructive and we cannot have this with thousands of dollars worth of glassware in the room.

This week we are going to be taking a look at my most favorite national park…..Dinosaur National Monument. Most people would think that the dinosaurs would be the attraction for me when in fact it is the complex interplay between the structural geology and geomorphology.

Enjoy!!

One of the many monoclines located in the area (I believe this famous one is associated with the Mitten Park Fault, but don’t hold me to that). This is located near the meeting place between the Green and Yampa Rivers (The Yampa is my all-time favorite river BTW).

The infamous WEBER SANDSTONE!!!!!! Oh how I wish I didn’t know you so intimately……

Did somebody say elevated stream terrace?

Split mountain from google earth. Check out the Lodore Canyon

Ok, that’s it for now