The Elements Unearthed

David Black at Cape Canaveral, 2001

David V. Black has taught courses in media design technology (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, 3D Modeling and Animation, Digital Video Production, Web Design, Flash, and Director) at Mountainland Applied Technology College since 1997. He has also taught high school science courses (including chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, and earth systems) at Tioga High School in Groveland, CA; at Juab High School in Nephi, Utah; and at Provo Canyon School in Provo, UT. Altogether he has 20 years of experience teaching high school students and adults. He is currently working as a freelance graphic designer and video producer for business clients.

David has also been involved in professional development training and has led educator in-service workshops in such subjects as Macromedia (now Adobe) Director and using Mars 3D altitude data in the classroom. He has created online lesson plans in Quark XPress for the Utah Education Network and developed extensive photos, diagrams, and text for the State of Utah Resource Web (SURWEB) project, where he documented the history, culture, geography, geology, economy, and agriculture of two counties in western Utah and created 3D images and illustrations for the other 27 counties. In 1998 he was chosen to attend the NASA Educator Workshop program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA; a two-week, all-expenses-paid workshop where he met NASA mission specialists, toured the lab, and learned about NASA educational programs. In 2000 he was chosen as a NASA/JPL Solar System Educator and received additional training at JPL as well as mission materials which he distributed to over 500 other teachers through a series of workshops he presented in Utah. As part of this program, he also attended an educator conference at Cape Canaveral for the launch of the Mars 2001 Odyssey space probe. In 2001 he was selected as the Educator Facilitator for the NASA Educator Workshop program at JPL (now the NASA Explorer Schools program) and had the opportunity to help plan and implement the workshops  for 2002, 2003, and 2004. As part of this, he has visited five of the ten NASA field centers and has met many of the education and public outreach people at NASA, which has been a great opportunity.

David Black and Mars Rover Mock-up

In addition to his professional accomplishments, David’s students have achieved some amazing things. In 2003, the media design program at MATC was chosen as a Mars Exploration Student Data Team, the only class in Utah to be chosen. His students were able to use real Mars orbiter data as soon as it was uploaded from the probes in order to predict martian weather and alert the rover scientists in the event of an approaching dust storm. Four of these students presented their results and the multimedia project they created at a student symposium held at the Mars Student Imaging Program center at Arizona State University in 2004. David also traveled to Houston, TX to present his students’ results at the 35th Annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

In the fall of 2004, the media design students at MATC embarked on a new challenge: to tell the history of Utah’s AM radio stations. Working with a local media producer, they interviewed 25 current and former Utah disc jockeys about their days in AM radio in the 1950s through 1970s. They scanned photos brought in by the DJs, created animations, and edited hours and hours of video footage down into a two hour documentary that aired on Salt Lake City’s PBS station, KUED, in 2007.

Fractal cover image

For the last two years (2007-08 and 2008-09) the media design students at MATC and other student groups at high schools in Utah have begun the first phase of a new project even more ambitious and challenging. It is called The Elements Unearthed. In this project, teams of students are traveling to mine sites and refineries to document the history, sources, uses, mining, refining, and hazards of the chemical elements, important industrial materials, and energy production. They are working with subject experts including historians, scientists, and engineers to show where the chemicals and materials we use every day come from and how they are made. They are preserving the history of chemistry, beginning in Utah and expanding in future years to encompass other states. They are editing the video footage and photos into a series of podcast video episodes that will be linked through this blog and available on iTunes and YouTube beginning in January, 2010. During the summer of 2009, David visited the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, PA as a Research Fellow to acquire additional photos and information on the history of matter theories, alchemy, and the rise of modern chemistry. This fellowship was provided by a generous grant from the American Section of the Société de Chimie Industrielle. He also visited mine sites in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado on his journey back to Utah.

This blog is designed to report our progress on this project and give you a taste of what to find once the episodes are uploaded for your use. We will also post scripts, proposals. animations, photos, audio files, and presentations for you to look over and comment on. We welcome your input and suggestions. If you wish to contact David Black, please feel free to e-mail him at:

elementsunearthed@gmail.com

or

DavidandBecca@comcast.net (our personal e-mail)