On a cold January last year, I serendipitously worked as a substitute teacher at Apex Friendship High School in the Raleigh, NC suburb. Waking up early on chilly mornings became more difficult so normally I’ve been lazily sleeping past 7 am. Perhaps my dog was barking early morning so I woke up around 5 am and spent the first hour chanting prayers. Then I felt a strong urge to check the Wake County Public School System jobs listing. There’s a critical need for substitute teachers and I found about 20 job openings for that day on just the narrow list of schools in my area. A day of “subbing” pays between $120 to $135 depending on qualifications.
I noticed the need for a science teacher so I looked up the absent teacher’s name on LinkedIn and found she teaches Earth Science - my favorite subject! I needed to decide quickly, take a shower, and rush to leave in 30 minutes to arrive by 6:55 am. For my outfit to look like a preppy prof, I wore a T-shirt I bought in New York City from the American Museum of Natural History depicting whale conservation, a suit jacket, and cargo pants.
I arrived to the school, parked in the front visitors lot, signed in at the front office then hiked to the classroom by climbing four levels of stairs. I spoke to some freshman students to find out they are reviewing for the final exam covering five units: Astronomy, Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Lithosphere, and Biosphere. Class began at 7:25 am so I closed the door but several students meandered in late. Many students looked exhausted. I realize that I’m their grandfather’s age and they appeared to hope I would let them rest.
I joyfully introduced myself and told the students they would be using Canvas to look at study guides and take practice quizzes. Most all the students preferred looking at their phone screens, texting, playing games, listening to music and were slow to get their computers out of their backpacks. Some students rested their heads on their arms on the desk with the phone below.
To raise the level of enthusiasm for the subject, I said, “If you pay attention in this class today it can save your life! This is as important as learning about Covid!” A few students looked up and yawned; others glared as if to say ‘prove it.’ “Earth science teaches us how to live with and respect Nature! We can choose to fight the river current or go with the flow. We can learn where it’s safe to build homes and offices near flood zones or areas of earthquakes. How many homes are falling on the Outer Banks? We can learn how to reduce our carbon footprint and alleviate climate change.” Most of the class still appeared much more interested in their phones so I needed to take more drastic action.
“Everyone stand up!” I needed to repeat myself five times to get everyone to stand up. “Ok, we are going to simulate LIQUEFACTION. During an earthquake, when the ground shakes it can turn water-logged soil and sediments into a jello-like substance. Now everyone jump up and down! Feel the solid food in your stomach become liquid. That’s liquefaction!” We jumped about 10 times and finally the class looked awake. Fortunately, nobody puked.
“The 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires destroyed San Francisco, located along the San Andreas fault, so the city pushed the rubble into the Bay to create more fill. That’s where the SF Giants baseball stadium is built at Oracle Park. In 1989, the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred as the Giants played in the World Series. The Bay Bridge collapsed as did many buildings especially in the Marina District due to liquefaction.
“I learned from living in San Francisco there are safer places to live like in the East Bay area of Walnut Creek built on more competent igneous and metamorphic rocks. A building I worked in at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory became retrofitted with a hydraulic jack system to withstand major earthquakes. The damaged Bay Bridge using hard steel and cement changed designs to account for earth shaking using a baffle system in compartments that keep the bridge safer. The USGS is developing ShakeAlert to instantly notify people and potentially save lives. The system works based on primary P-waves travel about twice as fast as damaging secondary S-waves. There’s more time to alert people using social media the further away you live from the epicenter.
“One time at home in Walnut Creek (I did not mention I was sitting on the toilet) I heard some dogs barking then it felt like a truck hit the building with a loud bang (P wave). Then about 10 seconds later the building shook (S-wave) that lasted maybe 30 seconds but felt much longer. I learned it registered a M3.0 and nothing got damaged.
In addition to earthquakes, we discussed the Big Bang theory’s 14 billion years of the universe, creation of earth 4.6 billion years ago, Kepler’s 3 Laws of Planetary Motion, nuclear fusion and fission (some students got these confused), Coriolis Effect, Earth structure, Plate Tectonics, Water cycle, rocks, soil, climate change, and biosphere.
As the students worked on the practice quizzes and some still wanted to play on their phones, I walked around the class room to observe noticing many getting the correct answers. One question some couldn’t answer asked where does eutrophication originate- on farms, cities, mountains, or deep ocean? To answer, we need to know the definition that eutrophication is excess nutrients in water causing overgrowth of plants depleting oxygen in the water that originates from farms using nitrogen fertilizers which moves into streams and lakes by runoff.
I thought a glossary could really help these students and found 10 textbooks on the shelf by the teacher’s desk. The McGraw Hill Earth Science text book published in 2013 looked like a dinosaur. So I showed the book glossary as a useful textbook - maybe you could take notes in a notebook or use your phones? We also discussed how textbooks are becoming so rare and seldom used then segued into dinosaur extinction.
“When I went to college we paid $100’s for textbooks and did not have computers. We did not know the cause of dinosaur extinction and studied various theories like thinning egg shells. Then in the 1990’s a father and son team discovered an iridium layer that could have only come from a meteorite.” We discussed dinosaur extinction and survival of birds and mammals as well as how science continues to add new information. Older textbooks are still useful for most of what students need to know for testing but will not be up-to-date such as discussing the December 2022 LLNL breakthrough discovery of fusion to produce energy considered by the DOE Secretary as one of the greatest achievements of the 21st century!
I taught this same Earth Science class for four periods. I also got the funny assignment of filling in for the dance teacher before lunch - each group of three students used their phones to play music. Overall, I marvel at how education is changing so much by employing technology, no longer providing ‘dinotext’ books nor requiring taking notes. It will be interesting to compare academic achievement of past, current and future generations.
Hey Bill, are we all clear for OPSEC here?