Apologies for multiple postings

Subject: Call for abstracts (IMA2002)
Teaching of Mineral Sciences in the 21st Century.

Dear All,

The 18th General Meeting of the International Mineralogical
Association
is to be held in Edinburgh 1-6 September 2002. This meeting will
include a session (session 10) on the "Teaching of Mineral
Sciences in
the 21st century". Proposed by the IMA Commissions on History
and
Teaching (CHT) and on Museums (CM) this session is designed to
cover teaching of the Mineral Sciences over the fields of
Mineralogy &
Crystallography, Petrology, Geochemistry and Applied
Mineralogical
Sciences such as Environmental Mineralogy and Technical
Mineralogy.
The convenors of this session would like to invite you to take part
with
oral and poster presentations and would benefit of your help in
further
spreading this information in your institutions or working groups. We
hope that the session will be of interest for all active scientists
involved
in teaching the Mineral Sciences from school level upwards to
university level and for educating the general public on the
application
of the Mineral Sciences in the 21st century, maybe through
educationally
programs based in Museums.

Please note that although you can make only one oral presentation
as
first author at the meeting, the Organising Committee encourages
you to
submit further poster presentations. If therefore, you were to have an
oral presentation in your own research field, you still retain the
option
of presenting a poster to session 10 based on your teaching
interests
and
experience. We strongly hope that with your contribution this
session
will represent a lively "cross-section" of what teaching of Mineral
Sciences means today, in a diverse and rapidly changing
landscape of
Earth Sciences.

For your guidance and inspiration, we append some thoughts
below as
to topic areas that might be covered in the session. Note that this
list
is
not exclusive.

#Why do we teach Mineral Sciences at all?
#What is teaching of Mineral Sciences today?
#Which type(s) of Mineral Sciences are taught around the world?
#To whom do we teach Mineral Sciences?
a. Higher education:
        - main lines of study: "Mineralogy", "Geology", "Earth
Sciences"
etc.
        - closely-related lines: "Geophysics", "Environmental
Sciences",
        "Geography/Teachers", "Material Sciences", "Technical
Sciences"
etc.
        - free general courses in Mineral Sciences (for non-closely
related
        lines)
b. Non-higher education in Mineral Sciences
#Teaching border-line fields connected to Physics, Chemistry etc.
#Multimedia/web support for teaching
#How might we use the Web or computer based packages to
enhance
mineral teaching?
#How do we inspire 21st century students to become mineralogists
and
petrologists?

Please bear in mind that the deadline for abstract submission and
reduced-rate registration is March 31, 2002. Still we kindly ask you
to
consider registering and submitting abstracts as early as possible, in
order to ensure the financial security of the meeting and to enable a
better financial support where it is the case.

All the details concerning Abstract submission, as well as general
information on the IMA General Meeting can be found at:
http://www.minersoc.org/IMA2002
Please do not hesitate to contact either of us for further details.

Looking forward to meeting you in Edinburgh,

Peter J. Treloar - Kingston University, UK
([log in to unmask])
Dana Pop - Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
([log in to unmask])

....................................

Dr Stella Bignold
School of Earth Sciences and Geography
CEESR
Kingston University
Penrhyn Road
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey KT1 2EE
UK

tel:    020 8547 8850
fax:    020 8547 7497
e-mail: [log in to unmask]