LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — This Spring Break, it's all about the Earth for 130 Southern Nevada teachers.
Educating the educators means these teachers are engaging in hands-on learning experiences during a two-day workshop hosted, in part, by the Nevada Division of Minerals and the Nevada Mining Association.
Geneva Zoltek takes us inside the learning experience.
Here's what it entails: attending classes, conducting experiments, and gaining lesson plans to bring back to their classrooms.
"We think it's really important, because we're all environmental scientists at heart," said Garrett Wake, deputy administrator for the Nevada Department of Minerals.
“We're all subject matter experts, geologists, engineers, a lot of different earth scientists that come and participate and bring their knowledge and experience to impart on these teachers."
This year marks 40 years of educational outreach with these interactive workshops, which include mining tours. Lessons include a Play-Doh activity where teachers can map out plate tectonics activity, discussions on sustainability in the environment, and a bag-dropping experiment to calculate energy-use scenarios.
The event also includes the popular gold panning lab, where teachers get to sift through rock and sand to find silver, pyrite and more.
“I want to bring that back and just expose my students to these rocks, these minerals. It’s made up in our everyday things that we don’t even think about," said kindergarten teacher Theorora Lach.
The initiative is all about digging deeper into the science of the planet.
“As you look around the world at our buildings, our cars, our roads, all of those things come from minerals we mine from the earth, and we try to make that connection with the teachers here in Southern Nevada,” Lake said.
The ultimate goal is to inspire the next generation.
“There’s just a ton of jobs here in the state of Nevada for our younger folks coming up in school, looking for an education that both offers time in an office setting, in a laboratory setting, but also in the field as well," Lake continued.
