After several semesters of receiving favorable teaching evaluations, I won the Teaching Assistant of the Year award from the Department in 1991. I spent the following summer developing a laboratory manual for Optical Mineralogy along with assembling teaching supplies and equipment into weekly class exercises. During the summer of 1993, I successfully completed a major assignment of organizing and cataloging the entire collection of rocks, minerals and crystal model sets in the department. My last few years as an instructor involved teaching introductory courses in Physical and Historical Geology from which I gained a great deal of experience. Exciting phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, catastrophic mass movements and floods should also be introduced early in the semester to peak student curiosity.
Students therefore develop an appreciation of the power and control of nature over mankind.
Incorporation of the human dimension throughout the various topics is a major challenge. It's important to stress that the power of nature also includes dependency of mankind on natural resources and a healthy environment for survival. One perspective should reveal society's unfortunate role in environmental damage and depletion of natural resources in light of mankind's recent appearance on earth and how these negative effects directly impact our survival. Students, however, should also realize they have the ability to reverse these negative trends and to correct damages made to the environment. The discussions of mineral resources, flood control, mass wasting and disposal of hazardous materials should be incorporated and stressed in topics ranging from streams to economic geology.