Education and Outreach
At 蜜桃社区 Michigan University's Michigan Geological Repository for Research and Education, we place a high premium on education and outreach. The following initiatives describe the concrete ways in which the faculty and staff at MGRRE share their research and expertise in order to inspire future geoscientists, inform future voters and collaborate with industry members. Please see our summary of how we support learner success, discovery and collaboration.
CoreKids
In Michigan, earth science has not been a priority in the public schools, as is evidenced by the fact that it is no longer required at the high school level. This is unfortunate for many reasons, one of which is that young people need an alternative source of factual information for the earth sciences so they can become knowledgeable voters. To meet this need, teachers require a readily available resource for classroom materials and inspiration. To this end, the Michigan Geological Repository for Research and Education's K-12 outreach program, CoreKids, addresses these needs by providing classroom modules that tell the story of the earth鈥檚 age, its resources and how they are used and managed. Through hands-on experiments, students learn about subsurface materials in their own backyards. We hope this might inspire them to pursue careers in the geosciences as well!
Training Future Geoscientists
Downsizing, coupled with the fact that large amounts of current geosciences professionals are nearing retirement, has caused a shortage of geoscientists. The average age of those geoscientists remaining in the field is 50. Within the next five to 10 years, many of them will retire. At a time when we face increasingly complicated questions about resource use and management, this is particularly troubling. Environmental issues, assessments of risks and land-use allocation must all be considered by public, industry and governmental agencies. Well-trained geoscientists will be relied upon to bring facts and sound judgment to address these issues.
At MGRRE, our faculty, staff and resources are committed to training the next generation of urgently needed geoscientists. In the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences our students learn not only the subject matter, but they also learn how to analyze data and apply their knowledge to real world situations. At MGRRE, our students learn to use state-of-the-art modeling software such as . This exposure makes our students very competitive in their job searches. Furthermore, our students gain practical experience through collaborating on solving real-world problems with our industry partners. Our students continually make us proud by presenting their research at professional meetings, even while they are still here at MGRRE.
Training Geoscientist Educators
Train a geoscientist and the world will get a geoscientist. Train a geoscience educator, however, and the world may get hundreds of inspired geoscientists. As a part of a project sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (), 蜜桃社区 geoscientists are training science educators to see and appreciate the link between geology and chemistry. During a series of summer workshops, K-12 science educators from around the State met in Kalamazoo to learn and practice applying information about the elemental chemistry of earth materials. These workshops also delivered much needed resources to enhance existing K-12 outreach efforts to expose the regional community to the unique and diverse geologic history of the Michigan Basin, local industry, and industry-related projects. We have educational materials, including lectures, data-based learning activities, and elemental data from common rocks and minerals.
Industry and Governmental Outreach
At MGRRE, we provide outreach to industry and government through workshops and data. Since 1994, thousand of attendees have attended those workshops and told us that they have used the information they learned there. We also provide samples and data which have been used in resource exploration and development as well as infrastructure projects. That supports economic development and provides societal benefits. Three recent examples show how the materials archived at MGRRE were essential to these projects.