Gibson Consulting's
Distance Learning Program
1. Depends very much on wishes of the audience -- we will tailor it
and "individualize" it to the extent possible.
2. Include aspects of geoscience that affect daily life, e.g., use of minerals
in everything, economics and global aspects of oil & gas, environmental
problems, earthquakes & volcanoes, etc.
3. Can have focused sections if desired, e.g., technical aspects of crystallography
for mineral collectors, dinosaurs & other fossils, mountain building
& earth history, etc.
4. The level should be as high as the participants want; ideally we would
neither go over their heads nor present things already known -- this may
be difficult, but we will ask specific questions about participants' background
and interest level at the start. This will not try to be Geology 101 by
e-mail, but more of a targeted, topical, and interactive approach.
A. Instructors/leaders design intelligent Internet pathways that highlight a particular topic of interest, e.g., minerals, fossils, earthquakes, oil exploration, stratigraphy, rock types, etc. Participants follow links (branching tangentially as desired, of course); leaders provide leading questions and goals of the trek, to be summarized by participants after completion. One or two instructors will coordinate and guide this part of the program, and presumably the participants would return from sections of their treks with specific unanswered questions that we would deal with directly -- either with "answers", or better, with directions for participants to discover things on their own. Discovery, rather than telling, is the key to enjoyable learning.
B. Internet trek may be supplemented by reading assignmentsthat may range from textbooks to John McPhee's books to specific items provided by leaders via WWW or e-mail or even snail-mail; everything should be easily accessible to participant (e.g., at local library or we provide).
C. If appropriate to topic and participants' local area, provide remote guidance for a short field excursion the participants can go on by themselves at their convenience. Provide carefully designed thought questions to go the the field with.
D. After Internet trek, supplemental reading, interaction with lead instructor(s), and possible field trip, participants and a longer list of professional geoscientists (say, 6 or 7 -- potential list below) will have a concentrated e- mail discussion of the topic, focusing on questions (both of fact and philosophy) that the participants may have. Participants would write (and distribute via e-mail) a short summary of some aspect of each topic, to be critiqued by the lead instructors.
A. Minerals and Rocks -- chemistry, crystallography, uses, mining, etc.
B. Fossils and the history of life
C. Stratigraphy -- geologic time
D. Earthquakes and Volcanoes -- plate tectonics, structure of the earth
E. Mountain Belts -- origins, structures
F. Rock Types -- igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary; mineralogy, tectonics,
uses
G. Environmental problems and geoscience solutions and people's attitudes
H. Water resources
I. Geology of National Parks
J. Geology of selected State Parks
K. Geology of participants' local areas (or other areas they are interested
in)
L. Glaciers and Ice Ages
M. Geophysics, remote sensing
N. Oil & Gas exploration
O. Planetary Geology
P. Rivers, deltas, beaches -- erosion and deposition
Q. Rifts of the world
