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Geoscience education (two)

by John Macadam

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Geoparks are tasked to foster education

and research.

Geoparks are tasked to foster education

and research.

Hands-on activities

Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic? I suggest you start with “Is it a rock, or not?”. Three trays labelled “Not sure”, “Rocks” and “Not rocks”. Start with all specimens in “Not sure”….. YOU choose what’s in the mix! I suggest you include obviously-layered rock, something like polished granite, roofing slate, coin, ore, wood, fossil plant, etc… Discussion can lead onto to the rock cycle, water cycle, requirement for metals for green economy, etc
“Is it a fossil, or not?”
Which mineral is magnetic?
Which rock is limestone?
Which minerals scratch a copper coin? Which minerals scratch glass?..
Are all the white minerals equally heavy?

More hands-on activities

BUT….what do you do when lots of families come and are too many for your activities? You need a table with paper, scissors, glues, coloured pencils or felt-tips and then people can:
Make a 3D Jurassic scene (in a shoe box).
Colour a 2D Jurassic scene.
Cut out bits of dinosaur and assemble them correctly (instead of real dinosaur bones to assemble you can have real squirrel bones to assemble……. Well, you could have an avian dinosaur!

Yet more hands-on activities

Panning for (fool’s) gold
Sieving
Picking out microfossils – and identifying them
Making plaster casts – and painting them
Shaking up plastic bottles with chalk fragments in water, for the same time as shaking up similar bottles with granite fragments, etc.

Simple activities for schools

“Events for adults”

Are these X-rated? No under 18s allowed? (Mating techniques of spiky dinosaurs?). Role play?? Surely better to think of activities for families.

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