Education: Distance Learning – LIVE (Live Instructional Video Experiences)
Whether you teach science, history, technology, or social studies, we will work with you to adapt our videoconferences to your specific needs. Our videoconferences are designed for use with various curricula, and the content of most of them is flexible. Some are intended as cost-effective alternatives for schools that cannot afford to send their classes directly to Sterling Hill for our educational mine tour, and others are designed as stand-alone presentations on other topics. Though intended primarily for students, each can be presented at a "higher" level to any group of teachers who need instruction in teaching these subjects or desire a refresher course. The descriptions given below are general.
To schedule a videoconference, contact Teresa Crerand, SHMM Education Coordinator, at tcrerand@ptd.net. To discuss adapting one of the listed topics to your specific needs, or to propose a topic not yet on the list, contact Dr. Earl R. Verbeek, SHMM Education Director, at shmm@ptd.net, or by phone at 973-209-7212.
The following are brief descriptions of videoconferences currently on offer. Check back with us, because we are developing more. Costs are $200 for one or two presentations of 50 minutes or less (one class period), plus $100 for each additional presentation in a single day.
D1. Rock Discovery Center: What's That Rock? ($200,
plus $5 for each rock kit)
This videoconference serves as an introduction to students on how to identify rocks, using specimens from the ever-popular Rock Discovery Center at Sterling Hill. Rock kits will be mailed to participating schools beforehand (we recommend one kit for every four students). Each kit contains igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks from quarries in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. In addition to developing rock-identification skills, students will learn how nonrenewable natural resources are used in our daily lives, for everything from railroad ballast to pool tables.
D2. What's In It? How Is It Made? ($200)
We are now in our third generation of people who are largely disconnected from the Earth. Few of us these days make things for ourselves; instead we go out and buy them. In consequence, many schoolchildren have no means of making the connection between raw materials provided by the Earth and the household objects they use every day. What's in window glass? A coffee cup? The glossy paper of a book? The shingles on your roof? How does a bathtub drain pipe relate to a gas well? Find out as we explore the familiar world around us in a new way. Videoconference V3 is an ideal follow-up topic to this one.
D3. Resource Use at the Personal Level - Your Role as a Member of Society ($200)
The extractive industries (mining, quarrying, oil and gas production) provide the raw materials needed to produce almost everything we use in our lives, but our material wealth comes at a heavy environmental toll. Most of us go about our lives with little awareness of our role in this process. However, because these industries are market-driven, our lifestyle choices largely determine the environmental fate of mined areas. This videoconference is meant to serve as a reality check to connect us, the consumers, to what happens elsewhere on our behalf. In choosing our lifestyles there are few right-and-wrong answers, but there are consequences, and it is our responsibility to be aware of and acknowledge them. A wealth of material for classroom discussion and student research will result from this videoconference.
D4. Fluorescent Materials in our Everyday Lives
Postage stamps, office paper, laundry detergents, driver's licenses, safety clothing - what do these things have in common? They all incorporate fluorescent materials as part of their function. Fluorescent materials are all around us, some in obvious ways (the overhead light tubes in our schools), but many hidden. During this presentation students will explore the many ways that fluorescence is used in our daily lives.
D5. New Jersey Rocks and Sediments Kit ($220, plus $50 refundable deposit)
The New Jersey Rocks and Sediments Kit, prepared by the New Jersey Geological Survey, contains 17 specimens of the most important rocks, sediments, and ores that occur in the state. It serves as an excellent, hands-on introduction to the geology and nonrenewable natural resources of New Jersey and is accompanied by a page-size geologic map, an explanatory booklet, and a supplemental book on classroom activities linked to the kit. Our instructor will guide you and your students through selected activities and reveal how New Jersey's rock and sediment resources have been instrumental in the development of our state.
We recommend at least one New Jersey Rocks and Sediments Kit for every four students. These kits can either be mailed to you beforehand for a $50 refundable deposit, or purchased for $20 each if you wish to retain them.
