Biographies of Three Different Concepts

This chapter recounts the three narratives that constitute the backbone of the conceptual development promoted within the course. The narratives reflect the teaching I do during the entire course. The term is approximately 13 weeks long with an 75-min class twice a week. All but the final three classes are spent telling the narratives via lectures, demonstrations, activities, and open-ended questioning, in the fashion of interrupted case studies. I have come to look at these narratives as three separate biographies of the relevant key concepts: the historical nature of the earth, the age of the earth, and the dynamics (or tectonics) of the earth. In turn, an essential question frames each of these three narratives: