AN IMPRACTICAL IDEALIST’S JOURNEY INTO TEACHING FRESHMAN NON-SCIENCE MAJORS AND THE THEORY OF EARTH

Universities impose a science requirement on non-science majors. Some (many?) students take non-math geology courses to get a requirement out-of-the-way. Some (many?) introductory textbooks include environmental significance of geological processes for relevance to contemporary life, which may inflame student interest. A few of them mention planets only in passing or as an afterthought without connecting them to common earth processes, for example igneous activity. None consider mathematics as essential to geology. Some (many?) departments offer introductory courses more for accruing credit-hours than for pure altruism and educational ideals. I admit that all this is pragmatic. I submit that interests of 18-year old freshmen are equally inflamed by kindling their imaginations and asking how we know how nature works, and, how well do we know what we think we know. What perceived knowledge promoted Neptunism that was refuted with Plutonism? If the skin-deep knowledge of sial and sima promoted Continental Drift, rheologic interpretation of seismic wave propagation propelled Plate Tectonics. Will a new plume theory replace mantle convection? Were large scale impacts responsible for crust formation? Were impacts responsible not only for mass extinctions but also for biodiversity if not the origin of life on Earth? Should molecular fossils be common in Mars rocks? How much do external forces modify earth-processes currently considered to be driven entirely by internal forces? How much future-casting is reasonable? Comprehensive geologic knowledge is necessary to discuss such romantic questions. Herein is the content-geology that we commonly teach and is found in textbooks. Student excitement once aroused can be successfully garnered to introduce and demand application of mathematics, physics and chemistry for problem solving, which most introductory textbooks avoid. No genuflexion to environmental and other gods in search of credit hours or textbook sale is necessary. We have enough in what James Hutton celebrated as the Theory of the Earth (1795).