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TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 26 ● Number 3, 2001 Reviews This Dynamic Earth: the story of plate tectonics, by W J Kious and R I Tilling, USGS, Landscape format 27 x 21.5cm, 80pp, Obtainable from ESTA Promotions, price £7, post free. ISBN 0 16 048220 8. and This Dynamic Planet - world map of volcanoes, earthquakes, impact craters and plate tectonics, USGS. Landscape format wall map, 140 x 104cm, also from ESTA price £6 post free. This is an unsolicited review, written because I think the materials are so good that everyone ought to have them! ESTA also needs to declare an interest in that the items are stocked by ESTA Promotions. The map has been available through ESTA for several years, and a much-used one still features on a display board in my old lab (I pop in now and then, just to check!). It shows all that the title says, and is excellent for patternseeking exercises, as well as for stimulating students’ interests in general. The topography of the ocean floors is shown faintly, but used in conjunction with the colourful map of the oceans floors by Marie Tharp (which also happens to be available from ESTA), one has all one needs for doing justice to plate tectonics and a lot more besides. I first became aware of the booklet, This Dynamic Earth, whilst enduring the heat of Australia at the International GeoScience Education Conference last year, it having been brought as a free gift by the US delegation. It is quite excellent, giving the story of plate tectonics in clear English, with well chosen photographs, and with simple, bold diagrams. It also includes some of the human stories, such as how Wegener died in Greenland in 1930 and how Harry Hess managed to combine hunting enemy submarines during the War, with thinking about the geology of the ocean floors. It is not over (overly?!) American, and Vine and Matthews’ work is explained very clearly, among others. So far, I have only been made aware of one error, and that is a simple transposition of a caption on page 18, spotted by a historian! Since my discovery of the booklet, ESTA has ordered copies from the USGS and the Earth Science Education team has added the items to the kit of “samples” taken round to INSET courses. Both the booklet and the map have proved extremely popular among Science teachers, who see them as a way of enlivening their own knowledge of the subject and of capturing their students’ interest. I find that I am selling either one or the other, and quite often both, at most of the meetings in recent months, and we have had to reorder twice already. If I made any personal money out of promoting something like this, I could rightly be castigated (I did look it up!). However, the only people to benefit will be YOU; your students and colleagues; ESTA (not by much!); and, of course the USGS and their carriers! Excellent value for money - buy one of each for Christmas! Peter Kennett Sheffield ESTA Diary JANUARY 2002 Thurs 3 - Sat 5 January Liverpool University. Association for Science Education Annual Meeting. Thurs 3rd Jan. is Earth Sciences Day: Public lectures and INSET courses/workshops for Primary and Secondary teachers. UKOOA & ESTA. ESTA will have a staffed display/sales stand throughout the Meeting. MARCH 2002 March 1 - 3 Scotland Annual ASE Conference, Jordanhill School, Glasgow March 8 - 17 National Science Week APRIL 2002 Wed 3 - Fri 5 April UMIST (Manchester). Geographical Association Conference. ESTA will have a staffed display/sales stand throughout the Conference. SEPTEMBER 2002 Fri 13 - Sun 15 September British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Notts ESTA Annual Course and Conference. Friday 13th INSET courses Primary, KS3, KS4, A/AS level Geology, Higher Ed. www.esta-uk.org 118
TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 26 ● Number 3, 2001 Cash for Research: The P. T. Carr Award In 1996 the late Peter Towsley Carr left a bequest of £3,000 to create an award to be administered by the Earth Science Teachers Association (ESTA). The purpose was to fund geological research by practising schoolteachers. Peter Carr was born in 1925, and began his working career at High Duty Alloys in Slough. While working he studied part-time at Chelsea Polytechnic for a geology degree (with subsidiary maths) which he obtained around 1950. He joined the staff of what eventually became Herschel School, Slough, a technical high school, and remained there for the rest of his career. Initially he taught both subjects to A-level, but with only a small number of A-level geology students and an increasing shortage of qualified maths teachers, the school eventually decided that he was better (?) employed as a full-time mathematician. His brother Alan thinks he understood their logic in this, even if he was reluctant to agree with it. Peter himself struggled to do a research project on the Lizard in Cornwall, and was anxious that others might be funded in such a project to enable a successful outcome without undue financial difficulties. He died in February 1996. Aim of the award The aim of the award is to help to fund a practising schoolteacher wishing to undertake geological research, or to enable such a person to complete research already begun. ‘Geological research’ is here interpreted in a wide sense, to include research into: ● an aspect of the geology of an area, particularly one local to the teacher’s school ● geological and Earth science education at all levels ● the role of conservation in geology and Earth science ● improving the use of geological collections in education ● improving the public understanding of geology and Earth science ● the use of Information Technology in any of the above Finance The legacy of £3000 has been invested to produce an income. This income will be used to fund an award every THREE years. It is anticipated that the award will usually be of the order of £500, but this cannot be guaranteed. Procedure for making the award ESTA Council will delegate responsibility for administering the award to a sub-committee which must include at least one from the Chairman, Secretary or Treasurer of the Association. Notice of the award will be publicised by the sub-committee in Teaching Earth Sciences (or its successor journals) and by other appropriate methods as decided by the sub-committee to try to maximise the number of potential applicants. A deadline for the receipt of applications will be set. The sub-committee, with the approval of ESTA Council, may suggest a specific area of geological research for which the award might be made on a particular occasion. This discretion is intended to allow the sub-committee to encourage research that may be of particular value to geological education at a given time. Applicants will be required to supply sufficient personal details of their qualifications and experience, including previous research if any, at least two referees who can attest to their suitability to undertake research and receive the award, and an outline of the research proposal in such format as the sub-committee may from time to time determine. Applicants will also be required to outline how the award will be used to enable the research to proceed. The sub-committee will scrutinise and evaluate the applications, and may ask to interview applicants if it is felt to be necessary. The sub-committee’s decision will be ratified by Council, and that decision will then be final. Wherever possible, the selection procedure will be timed to enable an announcement and presentation of the award at the Annual Conference of the Association, usually held in September. No serving member of ESTA Council will be eligible for the award, although an award-holder may later be elected or co-opted to Council without prejudice. Expectations of the award-holder The award-holder will be expected to 1. undertake and complete the planned research project within an agreed timescale, in general before the next award is due to be made (normally three years). 2. keep the sub-committee informed of the progress of the research by means of a brief annual report in a form specified by the sub-committee. 3. inform the sub-committee without delay if a change in circumstances may lead to a delay in completing the research project within the agreed timescale, or to abandonment of the project. 4. return such part of the monies awarded as the sub-committee may determine to be reasonable should he or she fail to complete the research project within the agreed timescale, or within such extended timescale as the sub-committee may grant at their complete discretion. 5. publish his or her work as a paper in Teaching Earth Sciences, and present his or her work to members as a talk at an Annual Conference of the Association. The closing date for the 2002 Award is July 31st 2002. Further details and application forms can be obtained from Dawn Windley, ESTA Secretary, Thomas Rotherham College, Moorgate, Rotherham, South Yorkshire 119 www.esta-uk.org
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