Martina Boddy reporting on the next generation of young geologists
In April of 2024, myself and two of my fellow graduate students at Carleton University hosted a mini-course entitled ‘Minerals for Miners and Fossils for Bossils’. This week-long course taught 25 thirteen year old students introductory geology, mineral ID, introductory paleontology and anatomy. Carleton MSc students Ashan Ayanarajan, Jeffrey Yee and I developed course material to entertain and educate the students, including lectures, activities, and fun educational quizzes to test student’s knowledge.
An activity I led enabled the students to plan operations and dig in a sandbox mine, which also required them to develop a remediation plan. Each group’s mine was based off a real Canadian mine, where the students had to research the indigenous land that their mine was on as part of their remediation plan. An activity developed by Ashan Ayanarajan had students dig their own fossils out of homemade rocks, made from a mixture of plaster, sand and aquarium rocks. We noticed that the most engaging activities to the students were the activities that were the most tactile, and let them use their hands.
Close to Carleton University is Hogs Back Park, a geologically and paleontologically fascinating location. Here we were able to talk about faulting, glacial striations and stromatolites using examples in front of us. The course ended with a field trip to the Canadian Museum of Nature, where fellow Create trainees Christina Bakowsky and Catherin Suclan joined us. Here, the three answered questions from students in the Rock and Mineral section. This was a great opportunity to develop our skills in science communication and to ensure our students understood the content from earlier in the week. Many students had never been to the museum before and were excited to apply the skills they had learnt to identify the rocks and minerals around them.
This course was made possible by generous donations and help from the Canadian Museum of Nature, Carleton University Earth Science Department and iMAGE-Create. They have our sincere thanks!
