For the second year in a row, Rick Carlson and Steve Shirey will be participating in the Smithsonian Science Education Academies for Teachers, a professional development program organized by the National Science Research Center of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academies. On Tuesday, 29 June, the group will host fifteen science teachers at DTM as part of the “Earth’s History and Global Change” academy. The day will begin with a presentation on determining geological time. The teachers will then be split in half with one group joining Shirey for a hands-on lecture about rocks and field work and how this leads to an understanding of how geologic processes—ranging from the formation of continents to the origin of the Earth—work. Carlson, along with Mass Spectrometry Laboratory Manager Tim Mock, will help the second group determine the uranium-lead ages of a variety of zircon crystals using the lab’s laser-ablation ICP-MS. The lesson will include the basics of mass spectrometry, the composition of minerals, and the actual age dating of the zircons. Click here for more information on the program.