User:Ecatlos

About me

I'm a faculty member at the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin. I taught GEO416K, Rocks and Minerals in the Fall 2010. This is an undergraduate course taken by most of our geology majors.

Wikipedia Mineral Project

As part of a series of assignments, students enrolled in the course are creating Wikipedia entries for unusual minerals, or ones that Wikipedia has no entry. The inspiration for the project comes from my exasperation with the repeated questions: “Why do we need to know so many minerals?” and “What about these minerals do we need to know?” Rather than saying “Everything is important,” I hope to show you them that what they need to know depends on the geologic questions they hope to answer and that mineralogy developed in a historical context, parallel with other sciences.

The first assignment:

This first homework was part of a series of exercises with the purpose of getting them to explore library and internet resources available for Mineralogy. They have to create an entry indicating a mineral’s chemical formula and origin of its name. They become familiar with Wikipedia and library resources available in Geology.

The second assignment:

They create a table in Wikipedia format that lists important characteristics of their mineral (hardness, luster, color, streak, optical properties, symmetry etc.)

The third assignment

They describe the crystal class their mineral belongs to (e.g., isometric, hexagonal, monoclinic, triclinic). They write the meaning of the crystal class in their own words. I have found, however, that this can clutter the entry a bit. They are to reference their work in the format of American Mineralogist.

The fourth assignment

They describe the optical class their mineral belongs to (e.g., isotropic, uniaxial, biaxial). They are learning about optical mineralogy during this portion of the course.

The fifth assignment

They find out why their mineral is important. Importance is in the eye of the beholder. Some of these minerals are quite important (medically, economically, for collectors); others can be more difficult to find. Some minerals are only found in certain regions, so are only useful for understanding the geology of these limited areas.

The final assignment

I grade the final project at 5% of their total grade. In this portion, I give them points for correct mineral formula, origin of the name, with some effort made to discover why it was chosen, entries in the table, references in correct format, at least 1 reference in paper format, which crystal and optical classes their mineral belongs to and what this means, where the mineral is found, and clarity and organization.

Suggestions for future classes would be welcome.