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2 December 2011
Teaching the teachers: Activities for a plate tectonics workshop
A few weeks ago, I helped co-teach a plate tectonics workshop with a fellow UB geo grad. The workshop was intended as sort of a continuing education credit for local middle school science teachers, and rather than talk at them the whole time, we decided to have the teachers try out some activities that they could adapt for their classes. Plate tectonics is a pretty broad topic, and we covered everything from the history and development of the idea to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Because we had so much to cover (it was a six-hour workshop), we did three activities – one about sea-floor spreading, one about viscosity (to go along with the volcanology bit where we talk about magma type controlling landform appearance) and one that tied seismology and subduction together.
13 October 2008
Happy Earth Science Week!
I’m a day late, but only because I was visiting Niagara Falls yesterday with my dad – and if that doesn’t fit with this year’s theme (“No Child Left Inside”), I don’t know what does. See the Earth science? See it? Earth Science Week is a yearly outreach campaign run by the American Geological Institute (the people who publish Geotimes-now-Earth-Magazine, run GeoRef, and represent more than 44 other geoscience organizations …
30 August 2008
Questioning the system
Well, the Oreo activity hasn’t happened yet, but my first lab sessions didn’t totally freak me out, and none of the students walked out in disgust. I guess that means I’m doing well so far! (The first lab sessions are always hand-out-the-syllabus, anyway, which isn’t particularly strenuous.) I am questioning the general universe as to how I ended up with a Friday afternoon lab composed entirely of males, several of …
24 August 2008
Accretionary Wedge #12: Geology as a connector science
Hooray! I finally have both a working computer and internet connection. Definite cause for celebration, since I can now get back to blogging – at least as much as grad school allows, that is. Even more cause for celebration: This is post #100! I think it’s fitting that it should be an Accretionary Wedge entry, since at least part of the reason I started blogging was to connect with other …
27 December 2007
Inspiration and Thermostat Wars
A question recently came up at a social gathering about educators who were personally inspiring or changed the course of one’s career. While awaiting my own turn to contribute to the discussion, I was struck by just how lucky I’ve been academically (I’ll skip over non-academic inspiring people for now, although there have been quite a few). I’ve had a steady stream of wonderful, encouraging people guiding me from elementary …
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.