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TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 26 ● Number 3, 2001 Further Thoughts – Where Next for ESTA? IAN THOMAS This brief article continues with the theme I started in my item “From the ESTA Chair” (page 87). Can we learn lessons from others? What potential partnerships might be developed? As I write the anticyclonic gloom is all pervasive. However, if we are to address one of the issues in Roger Trend’s last Editorial (TES 26/2) regretting the lack of interest (indeed outright avoidance) of meteorology in schools, few of those now leaving school will have the slightest idea what the label “meteorology” means, let alone its scientific basis. This is quite astounding when we live on a series of islands where changing weather is a national obsession. This is even more staggering when we are bombarded hourly by programmes, acres of newsprint and newsflashes on meteorological disasters, global warming, el Nino, the warmest October on record and so forth. Yet again, conditioned by the constraints of Exam Board specifications and the National Curriculum, many schools appear to be lagging behind developments (some of them longstanding) in the ‘real’ World. This is perhaps even more remarkable still when one considers the emphasis for at least a decade on the environment – the main gap appears to be the unwillingness, inability or possibly fear of many involved to make the fundamental links between events and scientific explanations. Clearly ESTA cannot bite off more than it can chew – members are already stretched as they continue to make good progress in a wide range of fields. Just are we are improving Earth science teaching through an evergrowing network of partnerships, there may even be members willing to take this aspect further, for example by linking up with the Met. Office as it moves into its new home in Exeter. Broadening the theme a little further still, we might consider media coverage of the most popular, current, non-news issues of the day. In no particular order, these are likely to include: environmental matters; food and drink; art and design; and history/archaeology. ‘The environment’ can in turn embrace wildlife, major Earth events, astronomy and at a stretch – dinosaurs. ESTA can rightly claim an interest in most of these. However, when set against the memberships of, for example, the National Trust, RSPB or county Wildlife Trusts, the number signing up for Earth science pales into insignificance. I may have missed a critical slot but David Attenborough’s recent highly-acclaimed Blue Planet series appeared to have little, if any, coverage of the most fundamental question of why the oceans are located where they are! Apart from the odd five minutes on black smokers, there was more on polar bears alone, although the piece on corals was instructive. Turning to another field, and bearing in mind that Sc4 ‘Earth and Beyond’ is virtually 100% ‘beyond’, it might be instructive to consider astronomy in a little more depth, or, as we should now term it, cosmology. On a recent cold Saturday night I joined about 200 others (some of whom had made an 80-mile round trip and including at least two school groups) outside, staring at a large video screen. For an hour nothing appeared to happen, but very few people left. It was too cloudy. Apparently it was equally cloudy at the two linkup stations in Portugal and Poland. Then, minutes before 9 pm, the clouds here began to break up as if to order, and we began to see on screen an eight-foot image of part of the Moon with a small but growing detached blob to the left – this was Saturn emerging from behind the Moon. With time, the image became a little clearer so that you just about pick out the planet’s rings. We were watching the ‘Occultation of Saturn by the Moon’. I would guess that 99.9% of the population have never heard of the term ‘occultation’ – yet this was how it was advertised and the press release (with the same title!) generated numerous calls for interviews with my colleague Rod Tippett (he has just been appointed honorary education officer for the Federation of Astronomical Societies). I want to mention two more examples. First, think of the room set in almost any American movie – a telescope is a prerequisite prop. Even more remarkable was news we received recently of people signing up for a luxury flight across southern Africa next year to watch the next major eclipse – at £10,000 each! There is not the slightest doubt that in the media, ‘astronomy’ is a magic world, yet you cannot even touch it. So what is it about Earth science in Britain which induces a Cinderella syndrome? Perhaps if we had more effective ways of predicting earthquakes or volcanic eruptions it might gain a little more popular appeal – not that we would witness too many of these events here. The British Geological Survey has made a step in the right direction in respect of the recent Melton Mowbray earthquake, by using a questionnaire in the press to solicit accounts of experiences of local people. Perhaps a selection of the results could be used in some new teaching materials? But this is hardly the real answer. I am sure that skilled and up-to-date presentation are critical factors – possibly one or two embryo Patrick Moores, David Attenboroughs and Tony Robinsons are now beginning to emerge but it is a very slow process – there is no magic bullet. However, considering its size, for many years ESTA has achieved much and continues to do so. With so much ground still to cover we can only do this, as I have always emphasised, through partnerships - with other institutions in the scientific community including universities, the other scientific institutions, the BGS, both www.esta-uk.org 112
TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 26 ● Number 3, 2001 New ESTA Members GAs, UKRIGS and, at some stage, those engaged in meteorology and cosmology. Should we extend our brief to cover what is conventionally called the public understanding of (Earth) science - which should perhaps more correctly begin with scientists better understanding the public. To do this effectively we do need a co-ordinated prioritised rolling plan covering, say, the next five years. POSTSCRIPT 1 As I drew to a close, after days, the gloom outside has broken up to reveal an Earth scientist’s ‘to die for’ panorama of sunset over the Matlock gorge – complete with dramatic folding, fault controlled features, a variety of rock types, classic mineralisation and, glacial geomorphology, but which most people see in perfectly valid terms effectively in one dimension as, ‘a nice view’ (and I write as someone who has painted the scene a dozen times). POSTCRIPT 2 Incidentally, has anyone tried recording the shipping forecasts – reports from coastal stations – over a number of days, then asking students to plot the returns to establish moving weather systems from real data – here is plenty of good science, mapwork, ICT and the added possibility of numeracy. Ian Thomas Chair, ESTA Mr Steven Apsey West Sussex Ms Sarah Archibald Staffordshire Mrs S Buckland Buckinghamshire Mrs C Carruthers Skelmersdale Dr Brian Chaffrey Somerset Miss Hannah Chalk Preston Mrs J Charlton Co Durham Mr Ben Church Monmouth Dr Peter Copley Staffordshire Miss Deborah Gatehouse West Midlands Mr Darren George Sandow Miss Madeline Glasby St. Neots Mr John Ibbotson Sheffield Mrs Jane Ladson Sheffield Miss Rachel Lindskell North Devon Mr Glyn Mark Cleobury Mortimer Mr Michael McCausland Whitchurch Mr Daniel J.Newton Pontypool Mr Rick Ramsdale Silstone Dr Julia Ranger Wiltshire Mrs C Roach Brighton, Hove & Sussex 6th Form College Mrs Christine Wilde Rawtenstall Top Ten Signs that you might be a Geologist 10 You have responded “yes” to the question “What have you got in their – rocks ?” 9 You have taken a 22 passenger van over “roads” that were really only intended for cattle. 8 You have found yourself trying to explain to airport security that a geological hammer isn’t really a weapon. 7 Your rock garden is located inside your house. 6 You have hung a picture using a Silva compass clino as a level. 5 Your collection of beer cans and/or bottles rivals the size of your rock collection. 4 You consider a “recent event” to be anything that has happened within the last 100,000 years. 3 Your photos include people only for scale and you have more pictures of your rock hammer than you have of your family. 2 You have been on a fieldtrip that included scheduled stops at a gravel pit and/or a public house. And the number one sign you might be a geologist : 1 You have uttered the phrase “Have you tried licking it ?” Dawn Windley 113 www.esta-uk.org
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