When
Lansing Community College (LCC) took possession this year of 400 rocks valued at more than $40,000, it acquired teaching tools for its growing geology department.
The department is growing for more than one reason. As interest in the environment grows, scientists with knowledge about geologic formations are in greater demand, says Tom Deits, science department chair.
Furthermore, geology classes are in greater demand because students are going to LCC through a collaboration with
Central Michigan University (CMU) whereby they can get a four-year, elementary school teaching degree with a science specialization at LCC, for less money than they would pay at other schools.
The mineral specimens will be great for professors to show their classes, as well as the general public, Deits says. Some will be rotated on display in the Arts and Sciences Building.
They are from around the globe and fit well in the palm of a hand. None is bigger than a football.
The family of Ron Thill, chemistry professor at the college, donated the collection. His father, Gilbert J. Thill, a
Milwaukee printer, became interested in rock collecting in the 1940s and continued to his death in 1969, when the collection was stored.
“Rocks are quite amazing, when you think about it,” says Deits. “They came about only through a series of coincidences. Imagine volcanic chambers, thousands of years ago—just the right chemicals came together, the rate of cooling had to be just right, a chamber had to form. . . .”
After Nov. 15, the collection will be on display in the Academic Resource Center as well as the LCC physics lab.
Source: Tom Deits, Lansing Community College
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached
here.
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