ENHANCING THE LAB COMPONENT FOR NON-SCIENCE STUDENTS - FINGAL, MUD CRACKS, MENDELSSOHN AND THE TRIPLE JUNCTION

TCU is restructuring science for non-science majors by conceptualizing such classes as the capstone experience in science for most students. Financial commitment by a new administration has resulted in the installation of B&W G3 Macs in geology freshman labs. The challenge is to design instructional experiences that maximize the potential of this technology while maintaining academic integrity. In an attempt to supplement, but not replace, the traditional framework we are devising “Linkage Experiences” in order to broaden context both within the discipline and in a broader cultural setting. The triple junction is a powerful geometric concept that we use to illuminate ideas on symmetry, stress and strain. In the geological world students are led to evaluate scale and setting by examining plate boundaries, hot spots (particularly Afar), mud cracks and hexagonal joint patterns in a variety of igneous forms. In the “real” world crack patterns in asphalt and crockery are evaluated. In order to demonstrate the concept of homogeneous and inhomogeneous stress, students measure and graph crack patterns in mud cracks developed on slopes and flat surfaces and similarly contrast cooling crack patterns in igneous sills and inclined sheets. In both cases rectangular patterns are associated with slopes and hexagonal patterns with horizontal surfaces. The lab presents a movie-based field trip to Fingal’s Cave on the Isle of Staffa off the west coast of Scotland, where early Tertiary basalts display a spectacular array of hexagonal joints. The impact of this site on artists such as Turner and Moran, poets such as Keats and Scott, and musicians such as Mendelssohn places the triple junction in a broader ambience.