A history teacher, a gym teacher and a math teacher walk into an empty school during their spring break vacation… It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, doesn’t it? And while the atmosphere was energetic and light-hearted, this week’s activities were anything but a joke.

On Tuesday, April 15, 2014, educators from around the state of Nevada gathered at Faith Lutheran High School in Las Vegas for day one of the 25^th annual Southern Nevada Earth Science Workshop. At no cost to the teachers themselves, the two-day workshop is a joint venture put on by the Nevada Mining Association (NVMA) and the Nevada Division of Minerals (NDOM), aiming to educate Nevada teachers about earth sciences and the role that mining plays in our lives. Teachers are provided with teaching materials and lesson plans to utilize in their own classrooms.

Day one was comprised of a series of sessions, all taught by representatives and volunteers of the NVMA and NDOM, some of them former educators themselves. All teachers attended a general minerals session to begin their day, and each following session had a different theme geared toward a range of student ages. The attending teachers had designed their schedules ahead of the workshop, based on what best suited their students and their respective areas of education. These sessions included titles like How Do We Get Minerals?, The Circle of Mine Life, Economics of Mining and Critical Elements of Energy.

One session, titled Geologic Time and Fossils, asked that teachers partner up and choose a historic period (Cretaceous, Jurassic, Paleolithic, etc.). They were presented some information about the time period and given a selection of objects they could use to recreate fossils that would have resulted from this time period. Using a clay mold, they made imprints of rocks, minerals and plants then poured quick-dry concrete over their mold. What resulted were replica fossils representative of their respective eras.

“As a teacher, you sometimes lose perspective on what it means to participate in class,” said one educator, participating in the fossil-making. “I didn’t anticipate getting into the activity as much as I did – as we all did, but it was really a lot of fun and nice to be on the other side of the desk.”

One highlight from day one was retired teacher Sam Macaluso’s afternoon session titled Edible Geology, in which Macaluso demonstrated the formation procedure of the three types of rocks: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary.

Igneous rock, like obsidian, was demonstrated by heating margarine and molasses, dyed with food coloring, then pouring it onto a baking pan and placing it in the freezer to “cheat mother nature,” as Macaluso put it. The result was a glassy, edible rock candy sheet that shattered like the volcanic glass it was imitating.

Sedimentary rock, specifically the conglomerate formation demonstrated on this day, is made up of bits of smaller rocks and minerals and requires a cementing agent to hold it all together. This was an easy place for a twist on an old snack classic. Using various cereals to demonstrate the different types of rocks and minerals, melted marshmallows were used to piece together this edible sedimentary creation.

Far and away the favorite demonstration, however, was the metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rock requires time and pressure to warp and combine layers of rock. In this case, each participant made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (layers of bread, peanut butter and jelly representing different types of rock layers). Pieces of various candies were placed in the middle of the sandwich, representing mineral deposits, and then the sandwiches were placed on top of one another and wrapped in plastic. After teachers took turns of 10 seconds each, sitting on the stacked sandwiches (time and pressure), the sandwich stack took its turn in the microwave for five minutes, and the result was pancake-like strata with intrusions of candy deposits.

With much ahead of them in day two, teachers were dismissed, and the hum of their conversations as they left the building was a sure sign of day one’s success.