Kiss a Rock Week

Ribbon Limestone, Moselem Member of Virginville Formation (Ordovician), near Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania

October 9-15 is Earth Science Week. This year's theme is "Our Shared Geoheritage."  Rather than focusing on one aspect of earth science, this year's theme considers a variety of geologic fields and how people interact with earth features and resources and are affected by them.

Earth Science Week promotes education and understanding of our environment. There are activities for the classroom, other activities that focus on specific areas, and contests. And, very helpful, a directory of geoscience agencies, companies, and organizations around the country.

So go ahead and learn more about how geology has affected history and continues to affect life, politics, and the economy. Check out Earth Science Week for more information and local events.

Science of the World

Join all the folks learning what's new in geology and the related sciences as geoscience organizations celebrate Earth Science Week 2012. This year's theme is geoscience careers--learn about the broad range of career opportunities in geoscience. If you're a teacher, find materials useful for teaching at levels from kindergarten through high school. 

Earth science touches upon many, many aspects of life: the basic resources used for building homes, factories, other infrastructure, and many consumer goods; natural hazards such as floods and volcanoes; the supply of drinking water; and how we have been affecting our planet and environment as we change landscapes and produce wastes of all sorts. 

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI), with support from other geoscience societies, industry, and government agencies, has been organizing and coordinating efforts to bring earth science to public view and appreciation for several years now. Check out this year's activities at www.earthsciweek.org today!

 

It's almost over!

Well, have you missed it yet? I'm referring to this year's Earth Science Week, October 10 - 16. If you've missed it, wait for it to come again next October. You can still visit here to learn what it's about and what activities you are missing. If you're home-schooling, download some materials to help teach Earth-science concepts and find additional sources to engage students in exploring the Earth. Check out the sponsors and listed Earth-science organizations--see what they have to say about climate change or this year's theme, energy. If your kids can understand the material, perhaps you might want to direct the attention of your congressman to this site.

But hey, don't just do this once a year! 

Oh, crap--missed it!

Well, my last post announced this year's Earth Science Week, but not until a couple days into the week. I never got around to talking about some events around the country. We did even less about it at work--rather embarrassing, if you ask me. Like they say in Cleveland--Wait 'til next year! Perhaps we can practice on February 12: Darwin Day.

It has already started!

This year's Earth Science Week has already started! It's not too late--go out and look at a rock. Or visit here to see a list of activities going on this week.There's a lot more to Earth Science than just fossils--anti-science groups are just as eager to deny geological evidence of the age of the Earth, environments of deposition of sedimentary strata, knowledge about the occurrence and movement of ground water, and many other aspects of the world around us. Today's newspaper carried an article about psychics. Wouldn't it be better if papers carried articles explaining things that are real, and articles about what we know and how we know it? How can we tell if the world is warming? How long will we be able to pump petroleum out of the ground? Is there enough water available to sustain development at a particular location? Don't ask a psychic, ask a scientist. And geologists are involved in the study of many of these questions.