Earth Science One of the Most Important

Posted by Alexandra Matiella Novak Nov 19, 2008

How many people have every taken a geology class? Not many. In my experience as an Earth Science educator, I've found that most students get their Earth Science education as a small part of a general science class. What an injustice. The Earth Science field encompasses so much, it's impossible for students, at any age, to fully understand its potential as a career field when they only get a few hours lesson.

My fascination with the world of Geology started out (and my peer always laugh at me for this) after I saw the movies Dante's Peak and Volcano. I had always been interested in science - from elementary through high school - but it wasn't until I saw these movies my senior year in high school when I started to seriously imagine a career as an Earth scientist. A volcanologist, to be exact. Even when I started my freshman year at UCLA, I still didn't have a good concept of what I needed to study in order to become an expert in volcanology. The world of Earth Science was completely absent from my field of vision.

Towards the end of my freshman year, and as I became more aware of the majors available to me on campus, I came across one major that seemed to be able to offer me everything I wanted. The major was Geology and it was offered through the Department of Earth and Space Sciences. I had heard of Geology before, but never in the context of an education, or as a career.

My very first preparation as a Geology major was the hardest. A demanding class-load stocked full of physics, calculus and chemistry lectures and labs. These were the absolute basics to my education in geology, and the combination is quite unique from other majors. Sure, biology majors have to know their calculus and chemistry, but not much emphasis is put on physics. And physics majors have to know their physics and calculus, but not much emphasis is put on chemistry. Geology majors had to know the entire suite of sciences - it's all about understanding the world around us from the most minimum to the most maximum scale possible. These classes were very challenging for me and I struggled through them.

The greatest reward came when I actually started taking geology classes. What's the first thing every geology major learns? Rocks. My first class was called Petrology and Mineralogy and it was taught by an incredibly patient professor who understood that the vast majority of us in the class had never even heard the words "petrology" or "mineralogy" before. He opened up a whole new world to us and I have never looked at a rock the same.

Yes, the world of Geology can open your eyes to so much more than you even realize is around you. It's like knowing a secret that few others are privy to. Walking down a pebbled beach takes a lot longer, because you have to stop and examine each rock, trying to identify its origin. Driving through a mountain pass is so much more entertaining because you now notice the layers of sediment and you can see how some layers are made from a different material than others.

We need to focus more of our children's education on the Earth Sciences. We can't afford just a few hours in a school year to gloss over the subject and then never go back to it. It needs to be one of the core science subjects, like chemistry, math, physics and biology. We can't afford to let our children's education be so void of understanding the planet to the fullest extent. If we are going to rely on future generations to fix the problems of the natural world (energy, natural hazards, climate change, etc.), than we must arm them with the education to do so.

To get your kids started, the U.S. Geological Survey offers some great websites that are aimed at introducing K-12 students to the Earth Sciences. Here are some links:

• USGS Earthquake Hazards Program - Earthquakes for Kids
• USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory - Information for Future Volcanologists
• USGS Education - Schoolyard Geology
• USGS Landslides Hazards Program - Landslides 101
• USGS Energy Resources Program - Energy in a Nutshell (PDF)