Program Name
Rockin'
Around New Mexico
Administering Agency
New
Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology/ Bureau of Geology and Mineral
Resources
Contact Person (Name/Title)
Susan
Welch and Dave Love
Address
801
Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801
Telephone Number
505-835-5112
(Welch) 505-835-5146 (Love)
Fax Number
505-835-6333
The
Rockin’ Around New Mexico program is an outreach effort to teachers,
elementary through high school, from across the state.
It is an endeavor to increase the teachers’ knowledge of geology,
and the ensuing hazards, specific to New Mexico.
It is targeted at, but not limited to, teachers from the math and
science disciplines. The
program is a direct attempt to smash the public perception that New Mexico
does not have earthquakes and will never have a damaging earthquake.
To
combat this perception, as well as educate people about the geology of New
Mexico, the staff of the Bureau of geology and Mineral Resources teaches an
annual workshop called “Rockin’ Around New Mexico.”
Held in a different town each year, the participants explore the
geology of the locale while learning how the different features formed.
The teachers investigate how the earth’s plates move, earthquakes
and volcanoes shaped the landscape of New Mexico, mining affects the
landscape while yielding a vast variety of rocks and minerals, a magma body
is affecting the land and towns above it, and earthquakes move through the
earth.
Approximately thirty teachers, some returnees while
most are new to the program, attend the workshop each year.
These teachers spend three days coloring, cutting and taping,
collecting rocks and fossils, watching videos, exploring mines, and hiking
through the heat just to see a lava tube or earthquake fault; three days to
network with other teachers from around the state and to pick the brains of
the experts at the Bureau; three days to absorb new information and figure
out how to adapt it to each teacher’s specific class or grade level.
The workshop itself ends after three days, but the knowledge gained
from it continues to spread throughout the year.
The workshop’s games and worksheets, minerals and rocks find their
way into the classroom as does the message of seismic safety.
It can have a ripple effect: teach the teachers; the teachers teach
the children; and the children share what they’ve learned with their
parents.
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