Showcase Curriculum

"Geology through Global Arts and Artifacts" is a course for teachers seeking a New York State certification in Earth Science. It was developed as part of an NSF-funded project to develop a Master of Arts of Teaching program for NYC teachers that allows them to use the city's many cultural and natural resources in their teaching.

This exercise, in which students investigate the properties of minerals through the lens of art and painting was designed to do the following: 1) scaffold the idea that cultural institutions can be a rich resource for the teaching of Earth science given that rocks and minerals are used in art and architecture; 2) model best practices for elementary school teachers for integrating science into non-science classes, and vice versa.

In Fall 2020 all Brooklyn College courses were shifted to an online format. This includes EESC 2100-Earth Materials, a required course in optical mineralogy and introductory petrology.

In order to continue to provide students with experience in PLM, as well as reflected light microscopy, and SEM-EDS analysis, I adopted the Virtual Microscope developed by a consortium of Irish Universities, and redeveloped the labs around the large collection of virtual thin-sections that they made available

http://www.virtualmicroscope.org/