Personal Blogs

I managed to run through the three planned activities - just.

The interpretation of geological cross-sections proved fairly difficult for the students, as I anticipated. It was clear that they were still only just getting into thinking about geology again.  It would have been useful to start with a review of the natures of the rock types in the exercise.  This would be through looking at samples, or by providing a summary table (or both). The explanation of the process of reconstructing the history would be easier if I had some prepared slides of the stages. I think the last time I did a similar activity we were still using roller backboards - which made some of the rock movement descriptions more convenient!

So this is a really good activity, but it would benefit from additional effort on the presentation.


The radioactive decay activity really would benefit from using 100 pennies. In view of the shortage I decided not to use the D/P ratio part.  This activity would also benefit from some additional introductory discussion.

I only had a short time for the discussion of the 'essay' on plate tectonics and the rock cycle. However it engaged the students and let us discuss issues such as sentence lengths, introductions, and matching the answer to the question.

This tutorial was run for my S104 group in Aberdeen, and I will make sure I update it for the tutorial in Dundee in a couple of weeks' time. I will also try to obtain another 50 pennies.