CRESMET Projects Supported by
Resolution Copper Company in Arizona
Mining Country Schools

Resolution Copper Company has funded CRESMET work on two projects with teachers and students in the Superior Unified School District in the past year.

The company is exploring a copper deposit that could provide skilled engineering jobs for the
next 25 years, and CRESMET projects aim to produce knowledge that will support community and
school efforts to ensure that Superior students are prepared to take those jobs

A science fair development effort saw ASU/CRESMET science educator Sheila Kirsch visiting
sixth through ninth grade classrooms monthly for eight months to help students learn the scientific
method by designing and executing their own experiments.

Associate Professor of Geology Education Steve Semken is now developing for high school
teachers in Superior and surrounding areas a place-based variant of a course created in CRESMET’s
NSF-funded Project Pathways research effort.

Called CESMiS—Connecting Earth Science and Mathematics in Superior—the course will
integrate mathematics into study of geology topics drawn from the topology, climate and vegetation
of the Southwest.

The course, which carries graduate credit, will include extensive fieldwork and is being offered
tuition-free to Superior teachers in grades 7–12. In delivering the course Semken is finding rich
opportunities to extend his own research on place-based science pedagogy. His data in turn is being
used by the Pathways team to inform the larger research effort.