ONLINE OPTICAL MINERALOGY – A NEW FREE LEARNING TOOL IN MINERALOGY

Students today face different challenges than just a decade ago – many have schedules and jobs that prohibit regular class attendance, others cannot afford traditional textbooks, while still others can attend only part-time or online. Simultaneously departments and industry alike face dwindling resources and increasing demands for efficiency. How do we maintain and enhance teaching and learning in ways that are both cost-effective and of practical value to practitioners, students, and educators, and that take advantage of today’s technology? This is a particular problem in optical mineralogy, which demands significant resources, yet remains a key skill in the fields of mining and mineral exploration, forensics, mineral hazards regulation, and soil science, in addition to academic research in petrology and mineralogy. To help maintain and enhance teaching and learning in ways that are both cost-effective and of significant value to our communities, we have created a free open-source optical mineralogy book. “Optical Mineralogy” (located at optical.minpet.org) is a free, open-source, web-based learning tool and reference for practitioners, college-level students, and educators that takes advantage of web technology. The book contains hundreds of paired plane- and cross-polarized images and commented videos of minerals in thin section. Switching between plane- and cross-polarized light requires simple mouseover (computer) or tapping (phone) on the image. The site serves several practical and pedagogical purposes. Most importantly, it is designed so that students can identify minerals in thin section and complete petrographic exercises with little or no direct instructor assistance. The book has descriptions of the most common and important minerals and is intended as a reference and tutorial for university and industry use. It provides strategies and explanations for identification. Minerals are not simply labeled – the characteristics that lead to identification are also explained, and the book includes an on-line mineral search routine to streamline mineral identification and any exercises for training or homework assignments. More resources of this type should be developed in the sciences because the model of a print textbook, 2-3 lectures a week, and a lab session is not relevant to today’s students and the digital world.