A DEMONSTRATION OF GAMES WHICH REINFORCE UNDERGRADUATE LEARNING IN IGNEOUS PETROLOGY USING A CUSTOM-MADE DECK OF PLAYING CARDS

Understanding in the petrology classroom at the undergraduate level should be built on a firm foundation of chemistry and mineralogy, but instilling this foundation is increasingly challenging because many Departments have reduced the number of classes in mineralogy and petrology that undergraduate Geoscience majors are required to take. New approaches for linking these concepts are needed so students can better understand, relate, and integrate these foundations of geosciences. Inspired by Ward’s Complete Rock and Mineral Specimens Card Set, we designed a 52 card + 4 “jokers” deck of customized playing cards for this purpose. The four “suits” – divergent margin, convergent margin, transform margin, and plume – remind students that magmas are caused by Plate Tectonic processes. The 13 minerals – olivine, clinopyroxene, orthopyroxene, hornblende, biotite, anorthite, albite, muscovite, orthoclase, microcline, quartz, spinel, and apatite – include the most important igneous rock-forming minerals. These cards cannot be played like a normal deck of cards because the minerals are unranked (No A, 2, 3….K, A). The “jokers” are two silica-undersaturated minerals, nepheline and leucite. Card faces show a hand specimen of the mineral and thin section, around which the chemical formula, crystal system, and density are written. We have so far developed three games for students to play: The Game of Bowen’s, Density War, and Basalt Poker. Making such concepts into a game encourages students to better engage with key concepts without over-emphasizing memorization. A demonstration of the cards, as well as additional decks, will be available for students and educators to play with and view, to confirm the benefits of using such cards to better teach and learn key petrology nomenclature and concepts. We invite suggestions for other games that can be played with these cards.