Friday, February 29, 2008

Journey to the center of the Earth

Well, I might be making my submission to the Accretionary Wedge a bit early. I just received an e-mail from Earth Science Week (AGI) and they are advertising for a movie called 'Journey to the Center of the Earth - 3D.' It is a remake of the Jules Verne classic starring Brandon Frasier. While the book may be good for entertainment purposes, I'm not sure this movie will have much relation to geoscience education (i.e. reality). AGI says they will be developing a booklet of geoscience information and activities and will use the movie to explore “science fiction and science fact.” If the booklet is done well this could be a great learning opportunity, assuming the booklet is widely distributed and people read it. The skeptic in me says most people going to see the movie will not read the pamphlet, but the optimist hopes they will. I have not been impressed with the Earth Science Toolkit they sell for Earth Science Week (all flash, no activities - the web site is infinitely more helpful), but hopefully this pamphlet will address specific points about what the center of the Earth is actually like. Maybe they can even try and correct the geologic misconception that the mantle is liquid. I guess we'll have to wait and see when the movie and pamphlet comes out mid-July.


Tuff Cookie said...

Having received a number of the ESW kits over the years, I feel obligated to say that there are actually quite a few activities in them - the calendar has one for each month, and the poster has one on the back, and the materials from AGI member societies often include activities. That's 13 activities minimum per kit, at least in the ones distributed in the last few years.

Is it maybe that the activities are inside the handouts and on the backs of posters? You do have to open the calendar to find them, for instance, but they are there.

Tuff Cookie said...

BTW, congrats on the earliest submission for TAW #7!

Mel said...

Maybe I was just expecting more for the money spent on them. This past year was the first time I organized a whole bunch of events for Earth Science Week so I can only speak about the packet we received for this past year's event. My impression from perusing through the packet was that there was a lot of posters (so the money went to printing/ink?) instead of what I was looking for, which was activities that I could set up for ESCI Week. Fortunately, there web site is fantastic (I also used other resources like DLESE)! I don't want to bash AGI, because they do great things, but for me the packet wasn't as useful as I was hoping.
I also have to be honest, I did not look at the CD's much. None of our locations had computers or computer access, so most of those activities were not available to us.
Thanks for the comments though. I'll take a closer look at the packet next year, but with their fantastic web resources, I may not even need the packet.