GEOSCIENCE OUTREACH TO ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE-SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RURAL, WESTERN MINNESOTA: PITFALLS AND PROGRESS

Starting in Fall, 2012, I have developed an outreach program from the University of Minnesota, Morris Geology Discipline, targeting elementary school classes and students in Stevens and Pope Counties. Many of these schools serve small communities, with town populations below 800, and many class sizes below twenty students. In total, these presentations have brought the wonders of geology to students ranging from 3^rd- to 6^th-grade, as well as one school’s 8^th-graders, presented both within and outside of classroom settings. With over thirty presentations delivered to-date, at six different schools or other venues, there have been multiple opportunities to better-target these students as an audience. Topics covered have extended beyond merely “pretty rocks,” and have included more in-depth treatments on fundamental minerals and rock types, the growth and cause of fluorescent minerals and geodes, volcanology and magmatism, the geology of Minnesota, and geologic hazards. Student feedback has been joyful, insightful, and revealing.

Not only have presentations to these students forced me to recognize how to put geologic principles into truly simple, comprehensible terms, but these same students, some of whom additionally have severe learning disabilities, are generally underserved and ignored by university faculty. They need to be given more attention, as their often-limited scope of the world beyond their small towns can be significantly expanded by visiting professors. Through this work, I have developed a series of presentations that may be applied by other faculty in other settings, with an emphasis on opening the world of geosciences to young students with a generally narrow range of prior experiences with the world of geology.