CONSTRUCTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A GEOSCAPE GARDEN FOR TEACHING AN 8TH GRADE EARTH SCIENCE UNIT

As part of the NSF-funded GK-12 project, the GeoScape garden was developed in conjunction with Alliance Middle School, Stark Co., Ohio. It has been designed and installed as part of Kent State University's NEOGEO (Northeast Ohio Geoscience Educational Outreach) program. This collaborative project, which has brought together GK-12 fellows, students, teachers and administrators, involves the creation of five outdoor stations at the school, within an approximately 10-m2 area. The stations are framed, concrete slabs painted to depict a series of faults (normal, reverse and thrust), folds (an anticline-syncline pair) and a geologic cross section. The GeoScape design is modular and scalable, which allows it to be replicated in parts, or as a whole in other schools/educational settings. Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary boulders donated by a local gravel pit are also placed throughout the GeoScape garden.

The GeoScape project is used to help students understand and apply a variety of concepts, including geologic time and relative dating techniques (e.g. the principles of superposition, original horizontality, crosscutting relationships, inclusion and faunal succession). This unit also helps students to understand why sedimentary rocks and relative dating are important to studying historical geology and that the physical processes observed today also operated in the past and were responsible for the formation of geologic features we see in present-day outcrops and landforms. Students of Alliance Middle School that demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the geological processes and principles portrayed in the GeoScape will eventually act as junior geologists for other students in the school as well as students from neighboring schools.