News Dr Ian Carr Rocks! 23.04.2020
Dr Ian Carr, Head of Geology and Environmental Science at Collyer’s, with help from colleague Paul Davis, has spent the Easter holidays running on-line geology lessons as part of ‘The Kids Easter Geology Challenge’. Ian explained: “At the start of the Easter break I was asked by an old school friend on Facebook to do something for a bored eight year old over Easter, to do with rocks. So I came up with the ‘Kids Easter Geology Challenge’. The idea was to get kids involved in geology by finding what they could in their gardens. In the end I had contributions from all over the UK, plus Morocco, the south of France and Florida. I made a video every day with challenge questions and had contributions from various geology friends who made videos that were either uploaded onto the Facebook page directly or sent to me and I incorporated them into my daily video.”
The project generated some really useful educational resources for the future, including the ‘toilet roll of geological time’ made by Ian Sharp, who Ian Carr worked with at Manchester University. A number of videos have been edited, with the help of Ian’s 12 year-old daughter, and then posted on YouTube. Paul Davis, who teaches Biology and Chemistry has also made a video about the fossils found on the Jurassic coast.
Collyer’s Deputy Principal Steve Martell was delighted: “This is a wonderful, creative project. Huge thanks to Ian and Paul. They are rock stars, it’s as simple as that!”
Dr Carr added: “”It’s been great to help keep so many kids busy over Easter by getting them to explore what is in their own gardens! Hopefully this will spark an interest in rocks minerals and fossils that will last a lifetime!”