TESEP PD Outlines
PD1: Round and Round with Rocks and Minerals (The rock cycle and crustal geology)
A guided journey through the rock cycle from intrusion to mineralized veins, volcano to sediment and everything in between and how we mine and utilize geo-resources.
PD2: Riding the Climate Roller Coaster
Looks back over the last 4.6 billion years to find the drivers of climate change throughout geological time and discusses the impact climate fluctuations have had in the past as revealed by the rock record. This PD also examines the additional impact human activity is thought to have and the geological evidence for it and provides guidance on how teachers and students can access raw data to evaluate the results for themselves.
PD3: Greening coal (carbon capture and storage)
Discusses the origins of coal, the processes of coal formation and the carbon capture and storage technologies that can be utilized to reduce greenhouse emissions from coal and other hydrocarbons and the role renewable technologies can play.
PD4: Fossil sunlight (the hydrocarbon story)
Highlights the geology of the conversion of the sun's energy into chemical energy and its storage in hydrocarbons. Discusses the methods employed by exploration geologists to find hydrocarbons within rocks that are hundreds of millions of years old.
PD5: Wet rocks (groundwater)
Examines the importance of groundwater in the story of the hydrological cycle and its role in everything from dry land salinity to sustainable farming. The workshop was developed by the Victorian Chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH).
PD6: Hot rocks (geothermal energy)
Hot rocks examines the role geothermal energy plays across the globe at the moment and the future role it can play, with current Australian developments highlighting the value of this new technology.
PD7: Our Place in Space
Discusses the position we occupy on planet Earth within the context of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere.
PD8: Powerful stuff (the uranium debate)
Examines the geology and physics of uranium and how this fuel works in modern reactors and places
the common fears associated with this technology in context. This PD also compares all sources of
electrical energy: renewables and non-renewables and discusses them within the Australian context.
PD9: Plate Tectonics (the reason for the challenging Earth)
Describes how the theory of Plate Tectonics was developed and how this relatively new paradigm not only explains why the Earth is so dynamic but also how it can be used to reconstruct the past appearance of the planet, predict the most likely locations of mineral and hydrocarbon deposits and explain the distribution patterns of the fossils of animals and plants.