BTN: A career as a geologist

ANCHOR:

Have you ever wanted to fly in a helicopter, or get inside a submarine? Well, some lucky kids have done just that. It's all part of an idea to show kids that their hobbies can lead to amazing careers in science. But not enough kids are thinking about those jobs, and, as Sarah discovered, there's a lot more to it than lab coats and test tubes.

SARAH LARSEN:

How's this for work experience? Emma's in Year 9, and she won a competition giving kids a chance to experience the best of their favourite science subject. So she's being flown around in a chopper checking out mountains, mines, coastlines and more. Her guide is Greg Swain, exploration geologist.

GREG SWAIN:

I always liked exploring around the rocks and checking out the caves. I've always had a keen sense of adventure.

SARAH LARSEN:

Greg's part of a program designed to show kids just how diverse and exciting jobs in science technology can be.

GREG SWAIN:

Geology began to explain the questions which I had as a kid. About how the world worked.

SARAH LARSEN:

You see, while some kids love maths and science, others don't. Not enough kids are studying it, and that's a problem, because there are thousands of very cool jobs out there in need of young scientific minds.

SARAH LARSEN:

The South Australian Government set out to show kids there's more to it than numbers and lab coats. It recruited everyone from video game designers to Antarctic explorers to tell their stories on this website. It's called 'There's more to it than you think.' They also started a competition to give kids a day of ultimate work experience in their favourite scientific fields.

EMMA:

Well, first I heard of it in the school bulletin, and I thought it sounded interesting and you only live once, so why not? And so I did that. And because it had stuff to do with geology, I was interested and I wanted to find out more, learn more.

GREG SWAIN:

Geology, in a few words, is basically studying how the earth works.

SARAH LARSEN:

Under our feet, there's a lot more going on than you might think.

GREG SWAIN:

At the moment, we're standing on a thin layer of crust, like an orange peel on the outside of an orange. So we've got a really thin layer, which is solid, and then everything beneath us is all liquid.

SARAH LARSEN:

You might wonder what a helicopter's got to do with geology. Well, Greg says sometimes the best way to find out what's going on under the ground is from the sky.

SARAH LARSEN:

Geos take to the sky with special equipment that can measure variations in gravity and magnetism. What they're looking for are valuable deposits of minerals, like gold and copper.

SARAH LARSEN:

It's all a bit like a detective story. They look for clues like the shape of the hills, patterns in the rock, and even stones on the ground to try and figure out what precious minerals could be nearby.

GREG SWAIN:

Underneath us here, there was an ocean.

SARAH LARSEN:

This is the sort of stuff that got Emma hooked on geology.

EMMA:

It's not just rocks and everything. Although that's a main part of it. It's, I think, just how everything is in the world.

SARAH LARSEN:

Getting her hands dirty has made Emma even more interested in science, and she reckons if more kids realised just what was out there, they'd be more willing to give it a go.