Thursday, January 08, 2009

Things I Learned Teaching Earth Science

This semester I'm teaching Earth Science again.  This being my 2nd-time around, I have learned a few things from last semester:

1.  Earth Science.  Really.  Being a chemist, my Earth Science was very limited.
2.  They really like films.  Maybe they find the giant computers from the films made in the 1980s amusing.  Or maybe they like the break from me lecturing.
3.  Put a laptop in front of a student and chances are, he or she can't resist the urge in checking Facebook.  (All students at my school are given laptops.  Many profs have banned them from their lectures because students are usually chatting online or surfing the Net...which is actually going on because I remember what I was doing when I was a student....let's just say that in grad school my advisor was crazy impressed with my fast typing skills, and I couldn't tell him it was due to my keyboarding class from high school).
4.  Minerals and rocks are boring to students.
5.  The severe weather section (thunderstorms and tornadoes) is a review for Okies.
6.  The Age of the Earth, 7-Days of Creation, and Evolution are touchy subjects.  At least at a Christian school.
7.  Some non-scientists are surprised to learn that scientists don't just make stuff up - they do these cool things called experiments.
8.  I come off as a hippie-environmentalist because I talk about global warming and the ozone layer even though I'm currently struggling to recycle (even though we have the cool new recycle bins at our new place).
9.  Volcanoes are cool.

1 comment:

kellie said...

funny - Comp. Science undergrads at OSU are required to have a laptop. J never had that requirement and doesn't now. He said everyone is on them checking e-mail and surfing the net. A little ironic -- try to make it more hi-tech for note taking and actually make it easier to not take notes at all.