Geology Club
Palmer Means showing off the new GeoClub shirt at Louisiana Earth Day
The Geology Club spent this year focusing on community service. As always, the club tries to bring together students in the department in order to expand friendships and connections amongst its members. In addition, the club aims at increasing interest in geological sciences in classrooms around Baton Rouge. Through regular meetings, an active Facebook page, and social events the club has continued its mission to share a passion for geology with others. In the fall, the club participated in several outreach events including Ocean Commotion and Super Science Saturday, both held in the LSU Pete Maravich Center, and Wild Things! at the Big Branch Marsh Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe, LA. At these outreach events the club has a booth where it displays an exhibit created by Lindsay Prothro, a recent graduate, called “Minerals of Our Lives.”
In the spring, members participated in the Audubon Zoo’s Earth Fest, the BREC Ashley Thrower, Elly Smith, Anne Brennan, and Jennifer Kenyon at the Zoo’s Party for the Planet, Baton Rouge Zoo and the Louisiana Earth Day festival. While participating in these events is a great educational experience the club is also able to make connections with outside organizations, such as the Baton Rouge Mineralogical society and alumni of the department. The club even made it into the Daily Reveille.
Students explore stratigraphy during Eric Orphys’s demonstration
stratigraphy. Eric filled cardboard tubes with different colored clays and asked the children to cut into the clay sections. The children were then directed to measure each clay layer and write down any thing they thought was important about that layer. The end goal was to have them examine the depositional environments and create a timeline of the different depositional layers based on “fossil” content. The club has even been active this summer as well. Elly Smith and Tyler Hebert spoke at KidCam Summer Camp about geology and how it can relate to their lives. They gave a brief introduction on geology in general, presented the “Minerals of Our Lives” exhibit, and discussed career possibilities with the children. With a set of new officers stepping into leadership roles, the club is hoping to keep the future going in an exciting direction. They are currently working on finding guest speakers to talk at meetings and organizing several trips for this year.
The club treasurer, Eric Orphys, spearheaded an event of his own. During the spring semester, he created a project for kids in Covington, La to describe the concept of
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GeoClub members teaching young students at Ocean Commotion in the PMAC