Visits to your classroom:
Several interactive, hands-on presentations have been developed for classroom engagement so we can bring the Earth Sciences to you! Contact us to match you up with a graduate student who can come to your class or group meeting with expertise and some fabulous rock, mineral and fossil specimens.
Hands-on activities include:
- Mineral Identification – investigate physical properties of minerals and how people use them in everyday life.
- Rock Exploration – investigate rock types and the processes that form them.
- Interpreting Earth History – determining what happened to create a landscape.
- Radioisotopes and Absolute Dating – introducing the element Skittleium!
- Dinosaur Footprints and Trackways
- Geological Mapping – observations on the ground and big picture puzzle solving.
- Bird Seed Mining – a resource extraction and mine planning game
- Water Resources – where do you get your water?
- Volcanic Hazards – where can we build a resort that will be safe from volcanic eruption?
These presentations and accompanying activities are designed for middle and high school levels but have been easily adapted to other grade levels. For example, a modified version of the high school level Mineral ID activity has been presented to Grade 4 students with much success. All activities fit into one or two 40-minute periods and are designed to be hands-on investigations with a minimum of instruction, giving students the opportunity to explore and discover for themselves. We can also design a presentation for any age group, around other themes as requested.
Educators can also arrange to borrow rocks, minerals and fossil specimens and prepared loaner activity kits. They are designed to be self-contained, allowing those with sufficient background in Earth Sciences to be able to present them effectively.
Visits to us at Carleton’s Earth Sciences Department
We invite high school teachers to bring their class for a half-day (morning) visit to the Department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University. Visiting us offers a window into the post-secondary experience in an interdisciplinary field of study and allows us to explore Earth Science topics in our own laboratory spaces using our exceptional teaching specimens.
Your students will participate in:
- A first-year level lecture
- A related hands-on activity in one of our teaching laboratories
- A tour of our facilities
*Visit dates and times will be subject to availability of classroom/laboratories and lecture topics will depend on the availability of professors
Elementary classes are also welcome to visit; please inquire how we can design a custom program for you. To request a visit, or to borrow teaching materials, please contact earth [dot] sciences
carleton [dot] ca