間眅埶AV

EASC K - 12 Workshops

Earth Sciences is pleased to offer hands-on workshops for pre-K and K-12 students in our teaching lab with materials used by first-year undergraduates. Workshops are run by Earth Sciences' Lecturers and assisted by graduate and undergraduate students. For each workshop, our 6 large tables are set up with a huge variety of materials for hands-on experience.

Workshop topics:

Minerals, Rocks & Fossils (all grades)

Activities include:

  • Identifying minerals by their physical properties of colour, streak (powdered form), hardness (scratching glass plates etc.), cleavage & fracture (how minerals break), reaction to dilute hydrochloric acid, and magnetism.
  • Sedimentary rocks from sediments to sedimentary rock, fossils
  • Igneous rocks from magma/lava to igneous rock, volcanoes, introduction to plate tectonics
  • Metamorphic rock from protolith to metamorphic rock
  • The rock cycle
  • Workshop can be expanded to include a discussion of plate tectonics and our local plate tectonic setting including earthquake risk/hazard.

Dinosaurs and Other Cool Fossils (all grades)

Activities include:

  • Identifying the two main groups of dinosaurs (its all in the hips!): saurischian & ornthischian
  • Sauropods the long necks
  • Theropods the meat eaters & the evolution of birds (avian theropods)
  • Ornithopods the duck bills
  • Ceratopsians the horned dinos
  • Pachcephalosaurs the dome heads
  • Stegosaurs the plated dinos
  • Ankylosaurs dino tanks

Volcanoes, Earthquakes & Plate Tectonics (grades 4/5 and up)

Activities include:

  • Plate Tectonics: convergent plate margins (subduction zones), divergent plate margins (spreading centres) & transform plate margins (sliding past)
  • Where magma is generated & types of magma
  • Volcano distribution and types
  • Earthquake distribution
  • Our local plate tectonic setting and earthquake risk & hazard

Further Details

Where: TASC-1 Building, Room 7011 (our teaching lab!)
Workshop size: typically a maximum of 24 students but may be able to accommodate up to 30 students.
Duration: 1 to 1.5 hours
When: varies by semester depending on lab room & lecturer availability

Contact: Cindy Hansen, Earth Sciences Lecturer

Additional workshops in Earth Sciences are hosted by 間眅埶AV Science in Action.