Welcome!

The Challenge of Geologic Inquiry:Concept Mapping Workshop

Beijing Normal UniversityNovember 17 – December 6, 2014

Kip Ault, Professor EmeritusLewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and CounselingPortland, Oregon, USAault@lclark.edu

Focus questions:

• Why is science apparently so difficult for so many students to learn?

• Where does meaning come from?

• What are some important characteristics of geologic reasoning?

1. Organize knowledge to achieve meaningful learning. 2. Learn two tools for doing so: concept maps and Vee diagrams.3. Integrate ideas about geologic thought with geologic inquiries 4. For example: plate margin, geologic time, and fossil research.5. “Temporal reasoning” dominates.6. Participate with partners and work in small groups.7. Share and present work.8. Complete readings.

Expectations:

“I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can't understand it myself to begin with.”

Concept Maps and Vee Diagrams represent how thinking and doing work together in order to respond to the challenges of inquiry.

SCALE

Geologic problems

SCALE

Human Experience

Geologic problems

SCALE

is a characteristic of

Human Experience

far exceeds

Geologic reasoning

Geologic problems

SCALE

presents a challenge to

is a characteristic of

Human Experience

far exceeds

Temporal

Spatial

Geologic reasoning

Geologic problems

SCALE

presents a challenge to

is a characteristic of

are typicallyare often

Human Experience

far exceeds

Plate tectonics

Geologic time

Temporal

Spatial

Geologic reasoning

Geologic problems

SCALE

presents a challenge to

is a characteristic of

are typically

can be

are oftenconstructs explains

Human Experience

far exceeds

MAD Magazine1970

“A Dinosaur

Walks Into the

Museum”

Roland T. Bird

Natural History

v.47(2) 1941

PALUXY RIVER

TEXAS

Roland T. Bird’s scenario of a carnosaur attacking a sauropod.

Roland T. Bird’s scenario of a carnosaur attacking a sauropod.

But were the tracks laid down at the same time?

Megatherium tracks, where Darwin walked on the Patagonian coast.

Fossil Rhea footprint. Walking rheas provide a modern analogue for bipedal carnosaur locomotion. Tracks of fighting hippos help to infer behaviors of sauropods.

On the trail of a Patagonian Flamingo

Tyrannosaurus chickenensisThe “Dinochicken”

“Each rock is a moment of time, a sharp comment on

our fragile accident of life.”

David Leveson, A Sense of the Earth, 1971

f

“What we sense as stone is an elusive flicker

in a blur of change.”

“The variety of rock is infinite . . . It may suggest eternity, but

it is constantly being createdand constantly being destroyed.

It is, at each instant, the summary of its past

and the threshold of its future.”

David Leveson, A Sense of the Earth, 1971

“Even the stones disappear . . . Only the chants remain.”

Chinook Proverb

Working in pairs, make a concept map about rock and how if forms. Simplest directions:

• Start with a focus question (for example, “How do igneous rocks form?”)• List key concepts• Arrange concepts (by association and hierarchy)• Link the nodes• Label the links