Presentations have been made of laminated, framed USGS Geologic Maps of Time and Terrain to 732 schools across the country - primarily in Texas and Oklahoma. The maps have been put in prominent places in the school at student eye-level-cafeteria, hallways, libraries, foyers. We have a label attached under the lamination that says “2007 Donation by the Corpus Christi Geological Society with support of the Don Boyd Continuing Education Fund.

Our goal is to “Plant the Seeds of Geologic Curiosity” by encouraging an interest in science in general and geology in particular and we think this map can do that.

Our usual presentations are to groups of students with their teachers where we tell them some facts about the map and then challenge them to tell those facts to any student/teacher that they see looking at the map. The map comes with a booklet of pertinent information about the map and how it was created. Check out the 'How to Present Maps' Guide.

This project has involved many of our members. They donate $150 per map—they can present the map themselves if they want to—but we have members who will also make multiple school presentations. We have raised about $18,000 since September, 2006 not only from members, but also from the community as they hear about the program. The Don Boyd Continuing Education Fund also contributes additional funds.

Click here to donate to our Public Outreach programs! The Maps in Schools, Bones in Schools, and Boulders in Schools all plant the seeds of curiousity in children around our community. Thank you for all of your help!

Interactive Map - Move your mouse over the map for larger detail and 4 facts.
Four Facts about the Map Be sure to share these with another student, parent, teacher, or principal:
Light colors shows young rocks – map colors represent the ages of rocks on the vertical legend on the side of the map. The colors become darker as you go down the chart—this represents an increase of age from top to bottom Jurassic Era is the Age of Dinosaurs. Jurassic Park is not just a cool name for a movie dinosaur park, but the Jurassic is geologic time era where dinosaurs lived. Find the age Jurassic on the scale on the right side. The color next to ‘Jurassic’ is green, so anywhere you see green on the map, you could expect to find dinosaur age fossils or dinosaur footprints.	Central Valley of California and Mississippi River valley have deposits of the youngest rocks in USA. The light beige and light grey colors denote deposition since the Pyramids were built (roughly 10,000 years ago)—note the large grey are near the Mississippi River and along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Note the large beige area in central California that is larger than Lake Michigan. It used to be Lake California, but the water leaked out near San Francisco when movement on the San Andreas earthquake occurred allowed the water to leak to the Pacific Ocean—leaving a very large, very fertile lake floor. Mountain in northern Lake California is a 1 million year old volcano. Look at the round yellow mountain with holes in the top of it in northern Lake California. It was an island when the lake was full and now is a mountain now that the lake is drained. Find yellow on the scale to show the volcano is 1.6 million years old! This shows that a million years is considered as ‘young’.
Quiz after learning the 4 facts: Which state is older-- Michigan or Florida? Are the Appalachian Mountains older or younger than the mountains on the west coast? What are the ages of rocks along the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Coasts? Would you expect to find dinosaur footprints or fossils in Florida? Ask a student from to point out where on the map you could find dinosaur age fossils. Would the state of Maine have any dinosaur age fossils?

Teachers, we still have 90 schools in South Texas' ESC Region 2, including 40 in Nueces County, and still 27 in Corpus Christi, that need these framed, laminated USGS Geologic Maps of the USA! If you are interested in requesting a map, please fill out the form below and Owen Hopkins will contact you; and we will have a geologist present the framed map to your school, give you 2 rolled maps for teacher use, give a 45 minute geology presentation, give each student a polished mineral and give a set of 20 minerals/rocks all at NO CHARGE! This project is supported by the Corpus Christi Geological Society, Coastal Bend Geophysical Society, and Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists.
Teacher's Name:
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by Ken Milam EXPLORER Correspondent March 2009

Hopkins

A

• He began with the idea of “maps in schools” – putting colorful, laminated, framed U.S. Geological Society time and terrain maps of the United States at eye-level for fifth and sixth graders in the Coastal Bend area.
• He made personal presentations, speaking to kids and teachers in terms they related to, mentioning “Jurassic Park” and other popular themes.
• He got colleagues infected by his enthusiasm to help him spread the message.

• 307 framed maps have been placed in schools around the country. (Framed maps are intended for high-traffic areas; rolled maps are given to teachers for their classrooms.)
• The Houston Geological Society purchased 200 rolled maps for area teachers.
• The “Rocks in Your Head” programs, funded in part by AAPG, distributed about 650 maps to teachers who attended seminars in eight states during 2008.
• The Tulsa Geological Society placed 33 geologic maps of North America in local schools.
• Mike Pollok, a SIPES member in Oklahoma City, bought 50 framed maps to be placed in Purcell, Okla. area schools.
• West Texas Geological Society placed 36 framed maps in Midland and Odessa schools.
• The San Joaquin Geological Society is placing geologic maps of California in five schools each year.