A TEACHER’S GUIDE FOR THE GEOLOGY OF CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK CITY

Started in 2013, the Masters of Arts in Teaching, Earth Science Residency Program at the American Museum of Natural History, is a 15-month teacher preparation program designed to prepare highly trained educators for careers in high needs schools. As a result of this partnership between scientists and educators, we have created a new teacher’s guide for the geology of Central Park. This guide follows a GSA field trip guidebook (Jaret et al., 2021) but is framed for teachers and a more general audience interested in New York City geology.

This guide includes a general overview of the regional geology, a map showing locations of ten outcrops within the park, and specific stop-by-stop descriptions of the rocks. It also includes a suggested pre-trip classroom activity (written for a middle or high school class) and a set of template note pages for students to use when making observations in the field.

The guide can be found on the AMNH’s website:

https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/central-park-geology-field-guide

Highlights include coarse-grained igneous rocks at The Loch, tight upright folds of schist and amphibolite at East 79^th Street, and cross-cutting relationships between a pegmatite dike and the Manhattan Schist at the Rock of No Hope near the Delacorte Theater.