Education Officer Judi Lakin has news of a new Society Educational resource coming your way…
A new online resource, The Rock Cycle, will be available on the Society’s website in late May. The Rock Cycle is based on the English National Curriculum for science at Key Stage 3 (11 – 14 year olds), and is the first solely web-based teaching resource that the Society has produced. It is structured around a ‘hub’ page, from which information on all of the main Earth system processes and products can be accessed. As the content extends beyond the National Curriculum requirements it should be useful to science and geography students, and teachers, at higher levels - as well as casual browsers with an interest in how our planet works.
The shortage of Earth scientists in the UK is well known. We hope that The Rock Cycle will enthuse students who have yet to make a career choice about the world around them, and inspire them to look further at a subject that offers a wide variety of well-paid careers - with international travel often attached! We live on a planet whose physical and biological resources are under increasing stress, and the Society is keen to support the next generation of geoscientists, who will be needed to address a wide range of environmental problems. As a charity, we are required to demonstrate how what we do is for public benefit and educational outreach and support for the wider community is one way of doing just that. To that end, we hope to build on our experience of developing The Rock Cycle with related projects in the future.
The Rock Cycle can be accessed at
www.geolsoc.org.uk/rockcycle. It is the result of many months of work by a writing group steered by Mick de Pomerai, with input from the Education Committee. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of StatoilHydro.