GEOSCIENCE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION: DR. LONG'S HIGH SCHOOL LEGACY

Dr. Long’s legacy reaches down into high school in the form of Planet Earth, a registered innovative course taught only at the Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy High School here in Austin. This project-based geobiology course was born with Dr. Long’s help, and every spring and fall it engages Austin’s youth in the study of the geological forces that shaped and continue to shape their city and state. Planet Earth students get hands-on and field experience interpreting aerial photos and geologic maps and then head out into the field to collect data and learn the history of Shoal Creek and McKinney Falls. Their final products are a cross-section and analysis of Shoal Creek’s fault and a field-based geologic map of McKinney Fall’s sedimentary and volcanic past. As a model of project-based instruction, this course also has served as a training ground for the University of Texas’s UTeach Natural Sciences students, who have come to observe project-based instruction in action. Join us to see how Dr. Long's educational legacy engages the next generation of Central Texas citizens. Your presenters are two Planet Earth teachers, both of whom graduated from the UTeach Natural Sciences program and completed the Shoal Creek and McKinney Falls projects as undergraduates in Dr. Long’s geology courses.