So today is Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday for those of us in the U.S.; a day to set aside time for reflection about the things we are thankful for. I think it's a great holiday. Officially declared during the Civil War by the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, but it has deep roots in the settling of the Americas, and most of the time people think about pilgrims & native Americans on this day.
It is easy to be thankful for food. Especially delicious food that's easy to enjoy when surrounded by family and friends. That roasted turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, sweet potato casserole, pecan pie, apple pie, and all the rest are going to put a smile on everyone's face; a few naps will be taken as well!
As a geoscientist, I think there is another dimension of thankfulness that often gets overlooked - the Earth itself. It's easy to be thankful for food at a meal - is it easy to be thankful for a tank of gasoline? for copper wiring? for concrete sidewalks? for an aluminum can? All of these things are part of our daily lives and make modern society possible. Without them, life would be downright primitive. So I think I should be thankful for them, because they make life better.
Hold up, though - these things also bring about some serious problems. In a typical copper mine, the copper makes up less than 1% of the rock, and the other 99% is worthless rock to be dug up and stuck in a huge pile somewhere, leaving an enormous scar in the surface that's never going to get filled. Take a look at the Bingham Canyon Copper mine, one of the largest Cu mines on Earth:
View Larger Map
This hole in the ground is over 2 miles across, and is never going to be filled in because no one will ever want to spend the money to do it. And gasoline? Remember that incredible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a year ago? A huge disaster, destroying life and making a mess of the whole Gulf! If you missed it, there were some great visualizations, such as this one and this one, that allow you to see how big the spill was compared to any other place on Earth.
So how can we be thankful for things that bring such disasters to our world?
Maybe that's exactly the point. Maybe we get these messes because we never think about the natural resources we use, where they come from, the price that must be paid to get them, and the impact they have on our environment. Maybe, just maybe, if we were more thankful for these things, instead of just ignoring them, our change in attitude might cause a change in consumption. If we valued these things enough to be thankful for them, then maybe we'd start to see more responsibility, and less waste.
I said at the beginning that I think Thanksgiving is a great holiday. And the reason I think that is because it is one that deals entirely with attitude. It is impossible to celebrate Thanksgiving with a crummy attitude. The need to take some time to reflect on the important things in life and be thankful shoves the crummy attitudes of cynicism out of my head. There are major environmental problems that result from the abuse of Earth's resources, but maybe a more thankful attitude would help us change some behaviors from neglect to proper care. So I'm thankful for the Li in my cell phone battery, the Cu wires in my house, and the Pt & Hg lightbulbs I use to light my home. And hopefully I can turn my gratitude into more responsible use of these things, and less abuse on the planet they come from.
Geoscience news & issues on planet Earth, as well as anything else geological I feel like yabbering about.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Sand Dunes at White Sands Natl. Monument
So apparently the geoblogosphere has gone "yeah sand dunes!!" in the last week (check them out here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here!). I'll contribute a brief introduction to White Sands National Monument, located just west of Alamogordo, NM. White Sands contains numerous sand dunes, and as you can see in the pics below, they are quite tall and excellent for jumping off of! Geologically these are interesting because they aren't made of quartz, but rather are made of gypsum (CaSO4 * 2H2O). Therefore, the sand is soft, not abrasive, and cool to the feet even when the sun has been beating down on it all summer long. It is located in a restricted basin, and there is very little annual rainfall, which would serve to slowly dissolve the gypsum. This location is at: 32° 49.225' N, 106° 16.404' W. Take a look in google maps - there are hundreds of dunes of all shapes & sizes. The area totals about 20 miles wide!
Thursday, November 3, 2011
International Development & Geoscience
At last month's Geological Society of America meeting, there were a number of talks on the role that the geosciences can play in international development. The presentations were fantastic and challenging, and I think you'll agree.
First off, the Darcy lecture was given this year by Stephen Silliman, a professor of hydrogeology at the University of Notre Dame University. He spoke about the work they have been doing in Benin, west Africa, where they are working to obtain reliable, long term hydrologic data on the quality of the water. He spoke of the conditions of the country, where many lack access to clean drinking water, and sewage is often not treated appropriately. Consequently, many of the problems related to water quality are in fact caused by contamination of wells and streams by human and animal waste. He spoke about the need to work with the local people in a long term relationship, where the local people come to an ownership of the changes that are needed. But cultural norms are difficult to change. I was deeply impressive with his passion to help the people of Benin; it was clear that he was not only interested in scientific data on water, but also he struck me as being very missional about helping these people by using his professional abilities. It is wholly appropriate for Stephen to be selected as the 2011 Lecturer for the National Groundwater Association's Darcy Lecture Series. In my opinion this reflects very well on the leadership who selected him for this prestigious appointment.
Additionally, there was an entire session on the subject that took place on Tuesday morning during the meeting. The session was very well attended with about ~50 people in the audience on average. I won't attempt to summarize all of the talks here, but the abstracts are all well worth reading. Jeffrey Greenberg, presiding over the session, began with a discussion of the critical importance of geoscience in issues of resource development, economics, politics, natural disasters, sustainability, and even "the destiny of nations". Paradoxically, however, he also stated that geoscientists appear to lag behind people in other disciplines in serving in these roles, and instead these roles are filled by engineers, social scientists, and biologists. As I listened to the talks, some very common themes emerged: 1) professionals will only succeed through working with local people; 2) professionals will only succeed through long term relationships; 3) many of the obstacles are simply needing to properly deal with waste (both solid and wastewater); 4) people are working on these issues all over the world; 5) expertise in hydrogeology is necessary; and 6) behavioral change is difficult but absolutely necessary. Fortunately, a new NGO has recently been developed, Hydrogeologists without Borders, to help centralize information & resources. There were talks about Guatemala, Nigeria, Kosova, Dakar, Costa Rica, and Arabia. One of the more fascinating talks was by James Clark, professor at Wheaton College, who described his work to create inexpensive geophysical equipment to be used for groundwater exploration. I was amazed at how cheaply he was able to purchase the necessary parts and construct equipment for resistivity and seismic refraction measurements, for less than about $250 each. He showed data comparing his equipment to more expensive (~$5000-20,000) equipment, and the results brought a smile to every face in the crowd. He also wrote the software that can be run on an inexpensive laptop computer. Imagine how many of these sets of geophysical equipment could be purchased & put to use in the developing world for only a few tens of thousands of dollars. The potential here is staggering. Another talk was given by a senior geology major in my department here at Olivet Nazarene University, Sam Smidt, who spoke about his work to test the ability of a small-scale version of a biosand filter to remove E. coli from water. He gave a great presentation and I doubt anyone was able to tell that he's an undergrad! Few undergrads give talks at GSA, so we're very proud of him and the work he did with my colleague Dr. Kevin Brewer.
The session proposal was written up last December by Jeffery Greenberg, my friend and colleague at Wheaton College, and first sponsored by the Affiliation of Christian Geologists. As current President of the organization, I couldn't be more proud of Jeff's work to make this session happen. I hope he'll go for it again this coming year, and that more geoscientists will get involved in presenting and attending. International development is a place where the abilities of many geoscientists meet with the world's deep needs.
First off, the Darcy lecture was given this year by Stephen Silliman, a professor of hydrogeology at the University of Notre Dame University. He spoke about the work they have been doing in Benin, west Africa, where they are working to obtain reliable, long term hydrologic data on the quality of the water. He spoke of the conditions of the country, where many lack access to clean drinking water, and sewage is often not treated appropriately. Consequently, many of the problems related to water quality are in fact caused by contamination of wells and streams by human and animal waste. He spoke about the need to work with the local people in a long term relationship, where the local people come to an ownership of the changes that are needed. But cultural norms are difficult to change. I was deeply impressive with his passion to help the people of Benin; it was clear that he was not only interested in scientific data on water, but also he struck me as being very missional about helping these people by using his professional abilities. It is wholly appropriate for Stephen to be selected as the 2011 Lecturer for the National Groundwater Association's Darcy Lecture Series. In my opinion this reflects very well on the leadership who selected him for this prestigious appointment.
Additionally, there was an entire session on the subject that took place on Tuesday morning during the meeting. The session was very well attended with about ~50 people in the audience on average. I won't attempt to summarize all of the talks here, but the abstracts are all well worth reading. Jeffrey Greenberg, presiding over the session, began with a discussion of the critical importance of geoscience in issues of resource development, economics, politics, natural disasters, sustainability, and even "the destiny of nations". Paradoxically, however, he also stated that geoscientists appear to lag behind people in other disciplines in serving in these roles, and instead these roles are filled by engineers, social scientists, and biologists. As I listened to the talks, some very common themes emerged: 1) professionals will only succeed through working with local people; 2) professionals will only succeed through long term relationships; 3) many of the obstacles are simply needing to properly deal with waste (both solid and wastewater); 4) people are working on these issues all over the world; 5) expertise in hydrogeology is necessary; and 6) behavioral change is difficult but absolutely necessary. Fortunately, a new NGO has recently been developed, Hydrogeologists without Borders, to help centralize information & resources. There were talks about Guatemala, Nigeria, Kosova, Dakar, Costa Rica, and Arabia. One of the more fascinating talks was by James Clark, professor at Wheaton College, who described his work to create inexpensive geophysical equipment to be used for groundwater exploration. I was amazed at how cheaply he was able to purchase the necessary parts and construct equipment for resistivity and seismic refraction measurements, for less than about $250 each. He showed data comparing his equipment to more expensive (~$5000-20,000) equipment, and the results brought a smile to every face in the crowd. He also wrote the software that can be run on an inexpensive laptop computer. Imagine how many of these sets of geophysical equipment could be purchased & put to use in the developing world for only a few tens of thousands of dollars. The potential here is staggering. Another talk was given by a senior geology major in my department here at Olivet Nazarene University, Sam Smidt, who spoke about his work to test the ability of a small-scale version of a biosand filter to remove E. coli from water. He gave a great presentation and I doubt anyone was able to tell that he's an undergrad! Few undergrads give talks at GSA, so we're very proud of him and the work he did with my colleague Dr. Kevin Brewer.
The session proposal was written up last December by Jeffery Greenberg, my friend and colleague at Wheaton College, and first sponsored by the Affiliation of Christian Geologists. As current President of the organization, I couldn't be more proud of Jeff's work to make this session happen. I hope he'll go for it again this coming year, and that more geoscientists will get involved in presenting and attending. International development is a place where the abilities of many geoscientists meet with the world's deep needs.
Monday, October 31, 2011
7 Billion
Last night a fascinating thing happened. There is a counter on a website, ticking upwards at a very impressive pace, and tonight it crossed the number 7,000,000,000. Seven Billion.
The counter is at the website for Population Action International, and this ticker is counting the number of human beings on the planet.
Seven Billion.
Here's video of the cross over that I recorded at about 12:12 AM central daylight time.
For thousands of years, the global human population was in the millions, perhaps a few hundreds of millions. We reached one billion in the year 1800 and haven't looked back since, crossing each billion in fewer years than the one before. Our exponential growth has been staggering!
Also at the New York Times Dot Earth blog last January, Andrew Revkin wrote up a great piece on the matter as well. The wikipedia article for this issue is also quite good in my opinion with lots of useful and good quality information, with details on birth rates, projections of future population, and other things.
Now some might argue that we don't really know if that ticker is right, and in fact the U.S. Census Bureau isn't projecting we cross 7 billion until next March, 2012. But both of these tickers are models of global population, they aren't of course actual counts of people. But that's really beside the point. It doesn't really matter if we crossed 7 billion today, in 5 months, or 5 months ago. It's kind of like Christmas in this regard - sure, baby Jesus may not have been born on Dec. 25th, but that's irrelevant to the spirit of celebrating Christmas. The significance of these events in terms of the impact they have on our world is more important than the actual date on which they happen.
A few facts are clear: most of the world's population lives in Asia, and the highest growing area of population is in Africa. The question is simply how will our world cope with these numbers. How will all of these people get clean water, and get enough food to eat? How will these numbers of people affect natural resources, such as metals, energy, and other industrial materials? The challenges are daunting, but I'm hopeful about it. I think humanity is able to solve these crises, but we need hearts that value our fellow human beings, our brightest minds to be active at solving these problems, and many hands active in the work. Perhaps we can all find some kind of role to play in this.
I believe geoscientists have a crucial role to play in this crisis. Our natural resources, including the essentials of food and water, come from the Earth. Geoscientists already invest themselves in the study of soils, water, and other natural resources, and it isn't a dramatic adjustment to apply this knowledge to aid areas of the world that are in great need. Further, we have knowledge about these issues that others need to be informed about; all geoscientists can be educators of those around them on these issues. We are in a unique position to use our profession to help solve some of the biggest problems the world is currently facing. A few weeks ago at the annual meeting for the Geological Society of America, there were several sessions focused on the intersection between geoscience and the developing world. I'll have another post on that topic in the coming days.
The counter is at the website for Population Action International, and this ticker is counting the number of human beings on the planet.
Seven Billion.
Here's video of the cross over that I recorded at about 12:12 AM central daylight time.
For thousands of years, the global human population was in the millions, perhaps a few hundreds of millions. We reached one billion in the year 1800 and haven't looked back since, crossing each billion in fewer years than the one before. Our exponential growth has been staggering!
 |
| Image from wikipedia |
The details of global population have been discussed a number of places. National Geographic has been running a year-long series on it, including an impressive photo gallery and this video on the subject that is well worth watching.
Also at the New York Times Dot Earth blog last January, Andrew Revkin wrote up a great piece on the matter as well. The wikipedia article for this issue is also quite good in my opinion with lots of useful and good quality information, with details on birth rates, projections of future population, and other things.
Now some might argue that we don't really know if that ticker is right, and in fact the U.S. Census Bureau isn't projecting we cross 7 billion until next March, 2012. But both of these tickers are models of global population, they aren't of course actual counts of people. But that's really beside the point. It doesn't really matter if we crossed 7 billion today, in 5 months, or 5 months ago. It's kind of like Christmas in this regard - sure, baby Jesus may not have been born on Dec. 25th, but that's irrelevant to the spirit of celebrating Christmas. The significance of these events in terms of the impact they have on our world is more important than the actual date on which they happen.
A few facts are clear: most of the world's population lives in Asia, and the highest growing area of population is in Africa. The question is simply how will our world cope with these numbers. How will all of these people get clean water, and get enough food to eat? How will these numbers of people affect natural resources, such as metals, energy, and other industrial materials? The challenges are daunting, but I'm hopeful about it. I think humanity is able to solve these crises, but we need hearts that value our fellow human beings, our brightest minds to be active at solving these problems, and many hands active in the work. Perhaps we can all find some kind of role to play in this.
I believe geoscientists have a crucial role to play in this crisis. Our natural resources, including the essentials of food and water, come from the Earth. Geoscientists already invest themselves in the study of soils, water, and other natural resources, and it isn't a dramatic adjustment to apply this knowledge to aid areas of the world that are in great need. Further, we have knowledge about these issues that others need to be informed about; all geoscientists can be educators of those around them on these issues. We are in a unique position to use our profession to help solve some of the biggest problems the world is currently facing. A few weeks ago at the annual meeting for the Geological Society of America, there were several sessions focused on the intersection between geoscience and the developing world. I'll have another post on that topic in the coming days.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Goods vs. Commodities: Why Shell & Exxon are not Walmart
Today in my natural resources & environmental issues course, I brought in a guest speaker, an economics professor. He visited with my class in order to discuss some of the relationships between ore deposits and economics. Though I'm certainly no economist, even some of the basic stuff is misunderstood by a large number of people (kind of like geology...). The relationship between ore deposits & economics is obvious if you know that an ore deposit, by definition, is a mineral deposit that is economically viable. The issues we are facing related to energy resources, economic growth, environmental preservation & protection, and climate change are complex, and we don't do ourselves any favors by continuing to misunderstand some fundamental concepts. Our society won't solve these massive, complex problems until we better understand them and rid ourselves of many common misunderstandings.
One of the more common misconceptions that I hear from people about energy resources is the idea that oil companies set the price of oil. When we hear that these companies are making record profits and at the same time the price of gasoline is breaking our bank accounts, people are quick to get angry and many ask why those companies can't simply lower the price to something that American's could more easily handle. Large corporations are easy targets in our society - partly for good reason - but falsehoods are falsehoods no matter who believes them or what purpose they might serve. And so here's a fact: Shell and Exxon/Mobile do not set the price of oil. They don't decide what they are going to sell it for. And neither does any other single entity on earth - not even OPEC, or the single most influential member, Saudi Arabia, gets to set the price of oil. A major producer like Saudi Arabia certainly has some impact, but they don't get too choose. The misconception boils down to this: people think that oil companies are like Walmart - that the company itself decides what price it will mark on the product when it puts it up for sale. This problem is that people don't understand the difference in economics between goods and commodities.
In economics, commodities are basically extracted materials - just about any kind of raw material that is extracted from the Earth. This includes energy resources such as coal, uranium, & oil, metals such as gold, silver, copper, chromium, aluminum, & iron, and other non-metal mineral resources such as road salts, fertilizers, & building stone. Outside of geology, economic commodities also include timber, corn, soybeans, & other agricultural materials. Goods, on the other hand, are finished products. A computer, a desk, a chair, and a kitchen sink are all goods. The difference between goods and commodities is that commodities have no real difference between one sample of the product and another. A bushel of wheat is a bushel of wheat. And a barrel of oil is a barrel of oil. One company can't claim their bucket of copper is any better than someone else's bucket of copper, so all buckets of copper sell for the same price. The prices of commodities are determined by the buying & selling of the commodity on international markets. With a finished good, however, different sellers can try to convince buyers that their version is better. So computers & lawnmowers don't all sell for the same price, because one lawnmower can be significantly better than another.
I'm not posting this to in any way defend "big oil" companies. I don't have any intention to either attack them or support them in this post. My goal is to simply point out that understanding a few simple principles of economics can help us understand what is true, and what just ain't so. Walmart certainly sets the prices for the products in their store, but Exxon/Mobile doesn't set the price of oil any more than a farmer sets the price of corn.
One of the more common misconceptions that I hear from people about energy resources is the idea that oil companies set the price of oil. When we hear that these companies are making record profits and at the same time the price of gasoline is breaking our bank accounts, people are quick to get angry and many ask why those companies can't simply lower the price to something that American's could more easily handle. Large corporations are easy targets in our society - partly for good reason - but falsehoods are falsehoods no matter who believes them or what purpose they might serve. And so here's a fact: Shell and Exxon/Mobile do not set the price of oil. They don't decide what they are going to sell it for. And neither does any other single entity on earth - not even OPEC, or the single most influential member, Saudi Arabia, gets to set the price of oil. A major producer like Saudi Arabia certainly has some impact, but they don't get too choose. The misconception boils down to this: people think that oil companies are like Walmart - that the company itself decides what price it will mark on the product when it puts it up for sale. This problem is that people don't understand the difference in economics between goods and commodities.
In economics, commodities are basically extracted materials - just about any kind of raw material that is extracted from the Earth. This includes energy resources such as coal, uranium, & oil, metals such as gold, silver, copper, chromium, aluminum, & iron, and other non-metal mineral resources such as road salts, fertilizers, & building stone. Outside of geology, economic commodities also include timber, corn, soybeans, & other agricultural materials. Goods, on the other hand, are finished products. A computer, a desk, a chair, and a kitchen sink are all goods. The difference between goods and commodities is that commodities have no real difference between one sample of the product and another. A bushel of wheat is a bushel of wheat. And a barrel of oil is a barrel of oil. One company can't claim their bucket of copper is any better than someone else's bucket of copper, so all buckets of copper sell for the same price. The prices of commodities are determined by the buying & selling of the commodity on international markets. With a finished good, however, different sellers can try to convince buyers that their version is better. So computers & lawnmowers don't all sell for the same price, because one lawnmower can be significantly better than another.
I'm not posting this to in any way defend "big oil" companies. I don't have any intention to either attack them or support them in this post. My goal is to simply point out that understanding a few simple principles of economics can help us understand what is true, and what just ain't so. Walmart certainly sets the prices for the products in their store, but Exxon/Mobile doesn't set the price of oil any more than a farmer sets the price of corn.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Accretionary Wedge #38: Back to School: What Teaching Has Taught Me About Learning.
In the Call for Posts to this latest edition of the Accretionary Wedge, Anne asked:
"What should you and I and other geosciences profs be doing better?"
In graduate school, I took some really sweet courses - like Igneous Petrogenesis from Calvin Miller (at Vanderbilt), and later Tectonics from Rob Van der Voo and Metamorphic Petrology from Eric Essene (both at Michigan). These courses were fun and memorable, challenging yet enjoyable, and above all, made me think critically about the topics at hand. There were a number of others too.
And then there were the OK ones, the so-so ones, and the awful ones, and I won't name names. I knew I wanted to be a professor when I got out, and I knew, as everyone does, that there are professors who are good teachers, and there are those who are in-between, and there are those who need to be encouraged to find another profession. And I would be one of the good ones, right?
I'm in my 8th year as a professor now since leaving UM. The one thing I've learned clearer than anything, is that graduate school does not prepare one to be a good instructor. At all. I realize now how very little I knew about how people learn. Spiraling? Student Learning Outcomes? Scaffolding? Pedagogy? Bloom's Taxonomy? Cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains? Assessment? Goals and objectives? I hadn't really heard of any of those terms. I was in training to become a professor, a job that at least in part involves teaching, but I hadn't even heard words of the language spoken by those who understand the literature on how to teach well. Graduate school does not prepare faculty to be good teachers, at least not intentionally.
In my early years as a professor, I absolutely couldn't understand why some of my students struggled so much to learn. Because I did some things really well. A lecture, now that I can deliver, with schnazzy, well organized powerpoint slides, numerous examples, interesting sidenotes, a couple of breaks for questions & discussion, and even a joke or two that drew actual smiles.
But here's what every professor needs to know: of that fantastic 50 minute lecture you just gave, the one you spent 2 full days preparing, organizing, scanning your old field photographs for examples, sifting through textbooks to find the right figures, and all of that - of that 50 minutes where you deliver a great lecture, students might retain about 10 minutes.
10 minutes?!!? Are you kidding me?!??! Unfortunately, no. Now, most of us professor go "now wait a minute, I got a whole lot more out of lectures than that!" Yes, you did... and that's why, today, you're the professor. But unfortunately the research shows that most people do not learn well from lectures. That's something I never learned as a student. But in my role as a teacher, this point has become crystal clear - for most students, lecture is largely a waste of time, even the good ones!
One concept that has revolutionized my teaching for the better is the realization that if students don't actively use the information being communicated to them, they won't really assimilate it or retain it. I've seen it many times now in the past 7+ years - I'll give a good lecture, students will comment that they learned the material, and we both feel good about what went on in that time we spent learning new concepts - but then I give them some problems to solve, or an activity to do, and they suddenly have tons of questions! They may have thought they understood a concept, but now having to apply it they realize they don't get it like they thought. Questions they didn't know to ask, now start coming out. These are the moments when they are really learning! All of us learn through our experiences, experiences that require us to overcome something, solve something, find a new way around something, etc. No one learns to ride a bike by sitting and listening to someone talk about how to ride a bike. You learn to ride a bike by getting up on that bike and trying to ride it - and you fail the first few times, maybe the first hundred times, but eventually, the neurons start to fire together in the right way, the skills are honed, and off you go!
So professors out there, if your students are struggling, even though you've given them what they need to know in a great lecture, and they've got some good books to help them out, and you went over that concept in class 5-6 times, and they asked questions, and it seemed to go really well, realize this - lecture is largely a waste of time. Man, I hate to say it! Partly because I've listened to some really great lectures at times, and really gotten a lot out of them. Instead, or rather in addition, think about what activities you could have them do, what problems you can give them to try and solve, and whatever else you can do to stop being the sage on the stage and start being the guide on the side. Because the good thing is, the students still need you. Student-centered learning doesn't mean that the teacher isn't important, far from it! Figured out a great way to talk about a tough concept? Got a great slide to summarize some complicated processes? Great! Deliver it well! Good lectures are still better than bad ones! But after that, what problems will you give them that will require them to use the information you just presented? What activities will you assign to them, where they apply the lessons learned?
When I first started teaching, this was really hard. What am I going to have them do? Do I have the materials I need? What questions will I ask? A really well developed activity takes a lot of work. To think about the learning goals of the activity, how to immerse the student in the subject, to assemble the right materials and equipment, and to write up a nice looking assignment sheet isn't an easy job. Fortunately, there is the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College. For many years now, professors from all over have been contributing activities, labs, and other information to the site. I find that for me, the best way to use the site is to follow the Teach the Earth link, and then head to the "Upper Level Geoscience Courses" link, find the course I'm teaching, and start searching from there. There is a wealth of information there, but it isn't always easy to find what you need or what you're looking for even if you know it exists there. But a lot of the stuff submitted is pretty good, and with enough patience I can generally find something that at least sparks an idea in my head. Now that I've done it a few times, it has become much, much easier, to think about, create, and implement good activities, and student learning is increasing.
Teaching has taught me that even the best lecture is largely a waste of time, but working through activities, solving problems, and recreating experiments is time very well spent.
"What should you and I and other geosciences profs be doing better?"
In graduate school, I took some really sweet courses - like Igneous Petrogenesis from Calvin Miller (at Vanderbilt), and later Tectonics from Rob Van der Voo and Metamorphic Petrology from Eric Essene (both at Michigan). These courses were fun and memorable, challenging yet enjoyable, and above all, made me think critically about the topics at hand. There were a number of others too.
And then there were the OK ones, the so-so ones, and the awful ones, and I won't name names. I knew I wanted to be a professor when I got out, and I knew, as everyone does, that there are professors who are good teachers, and there are those who are in-between, and there are those who need to be encouraged to find another profession. And I would be one of the good ones, right?
I'm in my 8th year as a professor now since leaving UM. The one thing I've learned clearer than anything, is that graduate school does not prepare one to be a good instructor. At all. I realize now how very little I knew about how people learn. Spiraling? Student Learning Outcomes? Scaffolding? Pedagogy? Bloom's Taxonomy? Cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains? Assessment? Goals and objectives? I hadn't really heard of any of those terms. I was in training to become a professor, a job that at least in part involves teaching, but I hadn't even heard words of the language spoken by those who understand the literature on how to teach well. Graduate school does not prepare faculty to be good teachers, at least not intentionally.
In my early years as a professor, I absolutely couldn't understand why some of my students struggled so much to learn. Because I did some things really well. A lecture, now that I can deliver, with schnazzy, well organized powerpoint slides, numerous examples, interesting sidenotes, a couple of breaks for questions & discussion, and even a joke or two that drew actual smiles.
But here's what every professor needs to know: of that fantastic 50 minute lecture you just gave, the one you spent 2 full days preparing, organizing, scanning your old field photographs for examples, sifting through textbooks to find the right figures, and all of that - of that 50 minutes where you deliver a great lecture, students might retain about 10 minutes.
10 minutes?!!? Are you kidding me?!??! Unfortunately, no. Now, most of us professor go "now wait a minute, I got a whole lot more out of lectures than that!" Yes, you did... and that's why, today, you're the professor. But unfortunately the research shows that most people do not learn well from lectures. That's something I never learned as a student. But in my role as a teacher, this point has become crystal clear - for most students, lecture is largely a waste of time, even the good ones!
One concept that has revolutionized my teaching for the better is the realization that if students don't actively use the information being communicated to them, they won't really assimilate it or retain it. I've seen it many times now in the past 7+ years - I'll give a good lecture, students will comment that they learned the material, and we both feel good about what went on in that time we spent learning new concepts - but then I give them some problems to solve, or an activity to do, and they suddenly have tons of questions! They may have thought they understood a concept, but now having to apply it they realize they don't get it like they thought. Questions they didn't know to ask, now start coming out. These are the moments when they are really learning! All of us learn through our experiences, experiences that require us to overcome something, solve something, find a new way around something, etc. No one learns to ride a bike by sitting and listening to someone talk about how to ride a bike. You learn to ride a bike by getting up on that bike and trying to ride it - and you fail the first few times, maybe the first hundred times, but eventually, the neurons start to fire together in the right way, the skills are honed, and off you go!
So professors out there, if your students are struggling, even though you've given them what they need to know in a great lecture, and they've got some good books to help them out, and you went over that concept in class 5-6 times, and they asked questions, and it seemed to go really well, realize this - lecture is largely a waste of time. Man, I hate to say it! Partly because I've listened to some really great lectures at times, and really gotten a lot out of them. Instead, or rather in addition, think about what activities you could have them do, what problems you can give them to try and solve, and whatever else you can do to stop being the sage on the stage and start being the guide on the side. Because the good thing is, the students still need you. Student-centered learning doesn't mean that the teacher isn't important, far from it! Figured out a great way to talk about a tough concept? Got a great slide to summarize some complicated processes? Great! Deliver it well! Good lectures are still better than bad ones! But after that, what problems will you give them that will require them to use the information you just presented? What activities will you assign to them, where they apply the lessons learned?
When I first started teaching, this was really hard. What am I going to have them do? Do I have the materials I need? What questions will I ask? A really well developed activity takes a lot of work. To think about the learning goals of the activity, how to immerse the student in the subject, to assemble the right materials and equipment, and to write up a nice looking assignment sheet isn't an easy job. Fortunately, there is the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College. For many years now, professors from all over have been contributing activities, labs, and other information to the site. I find that for me, the best way to use the site is to follow the Teach the Earth link, and then head to the "Upper Level Geoscience Courses" link, find the course I'm teaching, and start searching from there. There is a wealth of information there, but it isn't always easy to find what you need or what you're looking for even if you know it exists there. But a lot of the stuff submitted is pretty good, and with enough patience I can generally find something that at least sparks an idea in my head. Now that I've done it a few times, it has become much, much easier, to think about, create, and implement good activities, and student learning is increasing.
Teaching has taught me that even the best lecture is largely a waste of time, but working through activities, solving problems, and recreating experiments is time very well spent.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
A Discussion of Peak Oil
A couple of days ago the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece stating essentially that all the hype over peak oil is wasted air. Yergin writes with a clear distaste for anything and anyone who has cautioned the world that oil may not last forever or that we ought to be thinking about what to do about that now. Let me right away state my first issue with the article: it is filled with flashy, attention-getting language that is mixed with a fair share of hyperbole and grandstanding. For any of my students out there reading this, when you see language like this, you know one thing: you aren't going to get an analysis that is carefully reasoned, looks fairly at all sides of an issue, and reaches a balanced judgement on the topic at hand. That doesn't mean it doesn't have some good points to make, but it does mean we need to take a careful look at what it has to say.
The idea of "peak oil" is pretty simple - it is the idea that at some point the world will no longer be able to keep up oil production and over the years global production of oil will begin to decline. Pretty much everyone believes this; the debate is always about when that time will come and what a post-peak oil world will look like. The Wikipedia site for Peak Oil is in my opinion quite good on this subject, and another excellent site is The Oil Drum. The idea was put forward by a geologist named Hubbert, who made some calculations about how much oil is possibly recoverable and then made some predictions about how U.S. national oil supplies will trend in the coming decades. He began with the idea of small oil fields, and noticed that in many cases the production of oil from oil fields tends to follow something like a bell-shaped curve (technically it isn't a true bell-shaped curve, but it resembles one). Production is low at first, rises quickly, eventually hits a maximum, and then begins to decline. Within a larger region, the total amount of oil is higher, so the curve has a very similar shape with the difference being that the curve is larger and the peak comes later. Hubbert speculated that since fields of oil and regions of oil fields tend to proceed in this manner, then so will the total amount of oil in a larger area - such as a nation, and eventually the whole planet if we continue to extrapolate. So really it is a matter of scale - small oil fields tend to follow a small bell-shaped curve, larger regions follow a similarly shaped but slightly larger bell-shaped curve, nations and the planet as a whole will likewise follow a similarly shaped but much larger bell-shaped curve. But in each case, a peak in production is reached and production decreases after that.
In the mid-1950's, Hubbert predicted a curve for the United States and stated that the U.S. would achieve peak oil production ~1965-1970, and decline from that point. His prediction has been impressively accurate for actual U.S. oil production. Yergin attempts to downplay this in the WSJ article, focusing on the trees and arguing against the existence of the forest. But it is a simple thing to compare Hubbert's prediction of the U.S. peak with now historical data and see an impressive similarity. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970, and has been in decline since. It has also been applied to numerous other regions and again the fit is often pretty good. In other words, Hubbert's peak is an important concept for us to understand.
In some ways, Yergin is right to critique Hubbert. Hubbert's idea was a simple, starting model. It was a model based primarily on geologic volume of available oil. But the availability of natural resources is not simply due to geologic factors, but also to technological, economic, and political factors. Hubbert didn't include any wiggle room for advancements in technology, which have increased the total amount of recoverable oil from the world's oil fields by a significant percentage. There is no doubt that new technologies have allowed us to find more oil than initially anticipated for various oil fields and regions. These improvements have changed the back end of the curve, so that it doesn't fall as quickly. What this tells us is that the model needs to be updated and improved, not that the model needs to be ridiculed.
Hubbert's idea applied to the planet as a whole also doesn't incorporate economic factors well (really, at all). But neither does Yergin's analysis seem complete here. One problem with applying Hubbert's peak to global oil production is that there is a difference in the relationship between production and price at these different scales. For a small field, when production begins to decline, there is no affect on the price of oil in the global market. Production falls and price is unaffected. This simply cannot translate, however, to the global scale, where decreasing production will have a tremendous impact on price. As global production begins to decline, price generally will increase. As the price increases, demand may decrease and cause the price to fall again, but eventually price & demand will find a new equilibrium as the total supply continues to decrease. The net result generally is that price will rise, but it is buffered by decreasing demand. But a brief history lesson is in order here.
Oil prices, production, and reserves have at times followed a pattern such as this: oil reserves begin to get low, decreased supply causes prices to begin to rise, increased prices lead to increased profits, a portion of profits are re-invested into exploration for new oil fields, new oil fields are discovered, reserves & production increase, and prices then drop again. This scenario played out on a large scale in the 1970's & '80's, when oil jumped from $3/bbl to over $30/bbl in a short decade. But as the price rose, oil companies began spending their money on finding new sources of oil. And they were successful, especially in the North Sea (UK & Norway) and in Mexico, both also important for being non-OPEC nations. As these new discoveries were put into production, reserves and production increased, and price began to fall.
Hence, at times we might think we have reached a global peak in oil production, but the factors surrounding that may lead to new discoveries that in turn cause production to rise again. So that what we thought was the peak, wasn't. And this could certainly happen again. Anyone who's climbed a mountain is familiar with this - often times you think you can see the peak ahead of you, but then you get there and you realize it isn't.
But another point needs to be made that is completely avoided by Yergin: cheap oil is found first, expensive oil is found later. Yergin states that the world has 1.4 trillion bbl of reserves, and another ~3.5 trillion bbls of reserve base, material that is either not economically viable at the present time (i.e., too expensive to get out right now) or material that is not precisely known from a geological standpoint. That 3.5 trillion number by the way is highly controversial. Most of that 3.5 trillion is tied up in very non-conventional sources of oil - tar sands and oil shales. While these do exist, the problem is two-fold: 1) they will require very high prices for oil in order to be possible; and 2) they will require significantly higher impact on the environment in order to extract them. Focusing on #1, what this means is that as we continue to move forward in time, the next oil fields are going to require higher oil prices. As oil production declines and remaining production moves to more and more expensive areas of extraction, price is going to go up. The days of $2/gal gasoline are very likely long gone and aren't coming back, a point that Yergin doesn't bring up. Yes there is potentially still a lot of oil out there, but fewer and fewer people will be able to afford to buy it.
In the end, we must also realize that in such a complex global system involving geology, economics, engineering, technology, & politics, no one is ever going to be able to correctly predict the peak of oil in such a way that all of the rest of us will find it absolutely convincing. There will always be differing opinions on when peak oil will occur. One thing is clear - we aren't going to know when peak oil happens until after it does, and perhaps not even until a decade or more has passed. Only in hindsight will we be able to say when peak oil occurs. The prudent thing then is to make preparations for it earlier rather than later, but currently too few understand the concept and there is no consensus yet on what should be done about it.
The idea of "peak oil" is pretty simple - it is the idea that at some point the world will no longer be able to keep up oil production and over the years global production of oil will begin to decline. Pretty much everyone believes this; the debate is always about when that time will come and what a post-peak oil world will look like. The Wikipedia site for Peak Oil is in my opinion quite good on this subject, and another excellent site is The Oil Drum. The idea was put forward by a geologist named Hubbert, who made some calculations about how much oil is possibly recoverable and then made some predictions about how U.S. national oil supplies will trend in the coming decades. He began with the idea of small oil fields, and noticed that in many cases the production of oil from oil fields tends to follow something like a bell-shaped curve (technically it isn't a true bell-shaped curve, but it resembles one). Production is low at first, rises quickly, eventually hits a maximum, and then begins to decline. Within a larger region, the total amount of oil is higher, so the curve has a very similar shape with the difference being that the curve is larger and the peak comes later. Hubbert speculated that since fields of oil and regions of oil fields tend to proceed in this manner, then so will the total amount of oil in a larger area - such as a nation, and eventually the whole planet if we continue to extrapolate. So really it is a matter of scale - small oil fields tend to follow a small bell-shaped curve, larger regions follow a similarly shaped but slightly larger bell-shaped curve, nations and the planet as a whole will likewise follow a similarly shaped but much larger bell-shaped curve. But in each case, a peak in production is reached and production decreases after that.
In the mid-1950's, Hubbert predicted a curve for the United States and stated that the U.S. would achieve peak oil production ~1965-1970, and decline from that point. His prediction has been impressively accurate for actual U.S. oil production. Yergin attempts to downplay this in the WSJ article, focusing on the trees and arguing against the existence of the forest. But it is a simple thing to compare Hubbert's prediction of the U.S. peak with now historical data and see an impressive similarity. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970, and has been in decline since. It has also been applied to numerous other regions and again the fit is often pretty good. In other words, Hubbert's peak is an important concept for us to understand.
In some ways, Yergin is right to critique Hubbert. Hubbert's idea was a simple, starting model. It was a model based primarily on geologic volume of available oil. But the availability of natural resources is not simply due to geologic factors, but also to technological, economic, and political factors. Hubbert didn't include any wiggle room for advancements in technology, which have increased the total amount of recoverable oil from the world's oil fields by a significant percentage. There is no doubt that new technologies have allowed us to find more oil than initially anticipated for various oil fields and regions. These improvements have changed the back end of the curve, so that it doesn't fall as quickly. What this tells us is that the model needs to be updated and improved, not that the model needs to be ridiculed.
Hubbert's idea applied to the planet as a whole also doesn't incorporate economic factors well (really, at all). But neither does Yergin's analysis seem complete here. One problem with applying Hubbert's peak to global oil production is that there is a difference in the relationship between production and price at these different scales. For a small field, when production begins to decline, there is no affect on the price of oil in the global market. Production falls and price is unaffected. This simply cannot translate, however, to the global scale, where decreasing production will have a tremendous impact on price. As global production begins to decline, price generally will increase. As the price increases, demand may decrease and cause the price to fall again, but eventually price & demand will find a new equilibrium as the total supply continues to decrease. The net result generally is that price will rise, but it is buffered by decreasing demand. But a brief history lesson is in order here.
Oil prices, production, and reserves have at times followed a pattern such as this: oil reserves begin to get low, decreased supply causes prices to begin to rise, increased prices lead to increased profits, a portion of profits are re-invested into exploration for new oil fields, new oil fields are discovered, reserves & production increase, and prices then drop again. This scenario played out on a large scale in the 1970's & '80's, when oil jumped from $3/bbl to over $30/bbl in a short decade. But as the price rose, oil companies began spending their money on finding new sources of oil. And they were successful, especially in the North Sea (UK & Norway) and in Mexico, both also important for being non-OPEC nations. As these new discoveries were put into production, reserves and production increased, and price began to fall.
Hence, at times we might think we have reached a global peak in oil production, but the factors surrounding that may lead to new discoveries that in turn cause production to rise again. So that what we thought was the peak, wasn't. And this could certainly happen again. Anyone who's climbed a mountain is familiar with this - often times you think you can see the peak ahead of you, but then you get there and you realize it isn't.
But another point needs to be made that is completely avoided by Yergin: cheap oil is found first, expensive oil is found later. Yergin states that the world has 1.4 trillion bbl of reserves, and another ~3.5 trillion bbls of reserve base, material that is either not economically viable at the present time (i.e., too expensive to get out right now) or material that is not precisely known from a geological standpoint. That 3.5 trillion number by the way is highly controversial. Most of that 3.5 trillion is tied up in very non-conventional sources of oil - tar sands and oil shales. While these do exist, the problem is two-fold: 1) they will require very high prices for oil in order to be possible; and 2) they will require significantly higher impact on the environment in order to extract them. Focusing on #1, what this means is that as we continue to move forward in time, the next oil fields are going to require higher oil prices. As oil production declines and remaining production moves to more and more expensive areas of extraction, price is going to go up. The days of $2/gal gasoline are very likely long gone and aren't coming back, a point that Yergin doesn't bring up. Yes there is potentially still a lot of oil out there, but fewer and fewer people will be able to afford to buy it.
In the end, we must also realize that in such a complex global system involving geology, economics, engineering, technology, & politics, no one is ever going to be able to correctly predict the peak of oil in such a way that all of the rest of us will find it absolutely convincing. There will always be differing opinions on when peak oil will occur. One thing is clear - we aren't going to know when peak oil happens until after it does, and perhaps not even until a decade or more has passed. Only in hindsight will we be able to say when peak oil occurs. The prudent thing then is to make preparations for it earlier rather than later, but currently too few understand the concept and there is no consensus yet on what should be done about it.
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