In the essay series “Places that Reveal the Geological Mind,” we explored what goes on in a mind at the cutting edge of disciplinary practice and when first learning geology. We selected a series of places on Earth that reveal both geological processes and the mental processes that extract knowledge from rocks. Thomas (Tim) Shipley, a professor of cognitive science, has now been working with geologists and geoscience educators for over two decades. Funding from the NSF-sponsored Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center catalyzed leaving his familiar cognitive science community behind to try to understand how another scientific community thinks. Basil Tikoff, a professor of geology, has been a willing collaborator in the effort to link cognitive science and geology. The appeal, originally, was to understand spatial learning in a field that requires high levels of spatial thinking. It became apparent that understanding how one knows the natural world revealed aspects of spatial thinking that were not recognized by the cognitive science community. This series is the product of their ongoing collaboration.
Click on the images below to access the full essays.
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