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28 April 2012
Skype as an EASY method of connecting scientists and students
This week, I took 20 minutes out of my day to have a conversation with a group of students… …in Canada. As you can see, our conversation was not in person, but mediated by the Internet’s video conferencing technology service called Skype. A free Skype account and a video camera allows free, easy video conversations in real time, with people anywhere in the world. It is an absolutely amazing technology, …
23 April 2012
GMU structural geology students admire Compton Peak columns
Last Saturday, before the rains moved in…
14 April 2012
Students share their favorite parts of the eastern California trip
I did things a little differently in my latest field class, the Regional Field Geology of Eastern California. Instead of having a post-trip project (like I’ve traditionally done with my Montana/Wyoming Regional Field Geology course), I had the students complete a take-home test. I’ve just finished grading those tests, and was pleased to see the main themes of the trip were readily assimilated and applied by my fine team of …
19 March 2012
Overturned bedding in Poleta (?) Formation, White Mountains, California
After a roadside explanation just an hour and a half earlier on how the relationship between bedding and cleavage can reveal whether bedding is likely right-side-up or up-side-down, my students and I were walking up the road to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of California, and I saw this outcrop that illustrated the concept perfectly: The blue thing is a pen, to provide a sense of …
5 March 2012
Scott Mandia, climate communicator
Callan has a conversation with Scott Mandia, a community college professor working on the national level to improve the public’s understanding of climate science.
1 November 2011
Geoblogs as a device for student engagement
Here’s the talk I gave at GSA last month: [youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXt5aZIu5Xk”] It’s presented here at a slower pace than the actual talk was, since I didn’t have to run and catch a plane 45 minutes after presenting it, but there are some PowerPoint bugs with some of the animations. Oh well – recording it and putting it online is more than 99.9% of GSA presenters ever do to share their …
12 October 2011
The GSA meeting experience, 2011
I’m on the plane home from the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, held this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This annual event features a robust smorgasbord of science, with talks and posters detailing the research efforts of thousands of geoscientists from the US and other countries. It’s an amazing experience on many, many levels, and as I fly home now after a week in Minnesota, my feelings are …
27 June 2011
Team Rockies 2011
Our field class visited the Museum of the Rockies yesterday. Here’s the full team!
13 June 2011
Rockies stratigraphic column checklist
I just drew up a little checklist for the different formations my Rockies students will be seeing next starting next week out in Montana: The original black and white images (two columns on two pages) come from Self-Guided Field Trips Near Bozeman (1982), by Stephan G. Custer, Donald L. Smith, Molly Walker, and 1982’s crop of geology graduate students at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. This stratigraphic column, which …
9 June 2011
The annual summer routine of Mr. Callan X. Bentley
Callan gets ready for a summer of travels out in the Rocky Mountains, including teaching a field geology course, participating in a workshop about teaching energy, visiting the Burgess Shale, and… getting married!
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.