We’re back from Spring Break, and onto the final stretch of the Spring semester! This past Monday, March 24th, ECE welcomed our Earth Sciences instructors to the Storrs Campus, in collaboration with Dr. Robert Thorson, our wonderful faculty coordinator for ECE ERTH.

This year’s workshop was titled Connecticut’s Sense of Place, and consisted of two educational activities (described below), followed by a brief walking tour of key teaching sites that Dr. Thorson (“Thor”) utilizes to teach his introductory geoscience classes.

A brief overview of each workshop session:

PART A – Our Land

A dialogue slide show featuring ten places in CT that, taken together, provide an solid overview of how the geology influences our sense of place. This approach was summarized in an article in UConn Today by Elaina Hancock titled “Appreciating the Bones of Connecticut’s Landscape.” This article covers a series of ten mini-essays published together in a cover issue of Connecticut Magazine titled Our Land.

PART B – Teachers Responses to Connecticut’s “Sense of Place.”

The teachers were assigned a series of four short essays that collectively narrate how the Connecticut landscape came to be. These are: Part 1 – Making Connecticut and Part 2 – Connecticut’s Glacial Gifts and Part 3 – Exit Ramp Culture and Part 4 – Losing Ground. During this part of the workshop, Thorson highlighted each essay before the teachers shared their responses with each other.

Many thanks to all who joined us for a wonderful morning!

Earth Sciences courses available through UConn Early College Experience.

On Friday, March 14th, UConn ECE welcomed 37 of our French instructors to the Storrs campus for an invigorating professional development opportunity!

The morning consisted of a lecture on the theme of childhood and its manifestations in French cinema, led by Assistant Professor in French Studies, Dr. Raphaël Koenig. Then, in the afternoon our instructors were given the opportunity to visit UConn’s Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry for a tour and a lecture on puppetry in France and French-speaking countries led by Dr. John Bell, Director of Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and Associate Professor in the Dramatic Arts Department.

Many thanks, as always, to Dr. Florence Marsal, our faculty coordinator for French, for her tireless efforts to support our ECE Allied Health community.

French courses available through UConn Early College Experience.