my project, summarized for kids

[kareina]

Everyone in the geology department just received an e-mail asking us to provide short (< 160 characters) facts about geology starting with "Did you know..." to be added to a database, which highschool students will be able to access via their mobile phones. Apparently they will dial a number and the database will send them a text message with a random science fact. My contribution represents my best effort to summarize my project in terms that the target market could understand:

Did you know that garnet is a mineral containing a variety of elements? The ratio of these elements is used by geologists to determine the temperature and pressure at which the crystal grew.

Did you know that every mineral has a favourite temperature and pressure? If a rock is buried deeply it gets hot and new minerals, which like it hotter, grow to replace the old ones.

Did you know that radioactive decay causes changes in minerals containing tiny amounts of uranium? These changes permit us to determine how long ago the mineral formed.

The hardest one was the first--I so want to specify which elements, and the fact that it is the exchange of those elements with other minerals, like biotite, which really matter... But given what they will do with them, I undestand why they set the 160 character limit.

In other news--it isn't yet 11:00 am, and I've already accomplished 4.5 hours of uni work today. Time for a nap!

Comments

[fjorlief.livejournal.com]

I like those simple summary bits. I can't phone to get the full assortment, but maybe they could post it all online somewhere, so those of us who like such things could enjoy, even if we aren't highschoolers...

[kareina.livejournal.com]

I've passed on the suggestion to the person who sent out the original request for contributions. Should they act upon it, I'll post the URL. It will be a while no matter what, our deadline to turn in facts is the 14th of this month.

[bianca-di-bari.livejournal.com]

Sounds great! I remember in school trying to explain to other students what the difference between rocks, minerals, and elements were. Being a geek, I knew ;)

Now in grad school we had a teacher from Massachusetts who said "gah-net" for garnet and "cabinet" for carbonate so that provided endless entertainment too.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Try doing geology in Australia! I still wince every time they say "fash-ies" instead of "face-ies", and there are a number of other words that are only now, three years into the project, starting to sound "normal" when they say them...