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WVC Softball: Battery sparks Hazleton Area win

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Last of Coughlin High School on the auction block

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Yes, it was an environmental lesson, but it was also a lesson in the will of iron, as in how the element manifests itself even when bonded into stone or brick for ages.</p><p>Why, for example, were a few of the flagstones paving a lobby vivid red, while others were pale purple and nearly black? Wilkes University Professor Brian Redmond posed the question to area high school students attending an Earth Day event Friday, then answered.</p><p>&#8220;Well, there&#8217;s a very interesting thing about climate here when this was formed,&#8221; Redmond explained. It was red because the iron in it was exposed to heat, and it was very hot in Luzerne County 350 million years ago.</p><p>&#8220;Wilkes-Barre was near the equator when this was formed,&#8221; Redmond added, reminding the students about plate tectonics and shifting continents.</p><p>Ah, but why were the other stones <em>not</em> red? Because iron need oxygen to oxidize and turn red, and those stones &#8220;must have been deeper under water.&#8221;</p><p>Redmond took the story outside, showing more stones in an exposed patio that had begun to fade into similar pale colors, showing the the effect of weathering. Then he compared two sets of adjacent brick work, one bright red, the other much duller.</p><p>So, the bright red stuff was newer, one student guessed based on the previous lesson.</p><p>Nope, Redmond said, it was older, but had been covered with a ceramic coating for years that was only recently removed. In fact, he pointed out, the mortar between the dingy brick had straight lines in it, while the brighter bricks lacked such a feature.</p><p>The students were stumped.</p><p>&#8220;This part of the building was done after the flood&#8221; of 1972, Redmond said. &#8220;Money was tight, so Wilkes bought used bricks.&#8221; Those bricks were not as uniform in shape, and the lines in the mortar &#8220;make them look squarer.&#8221;</p><p>The students, one of several groups taking different brief lessons in things like groundwater quality and Geographic Information System software, were ready to move on to their next session, so Redmond painted the big picture.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s how science works,&#8221; he said, &#8220;A big part of science is observation, and observation leads to more questions, and those questions lead to more observations, and it all leads to a nice little story.&#8221;</p><p>And they learned happily ever after.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Professor Brian Redmond takes high school students on a tour of Wilkes University campus on Friday during the Urban Earth Science program. Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_urbanearthscience.jpg</photo0><caption0>Professor Brian Redmond takes high school students on a tour of Wilkes University campus on Friday during the Urban Earth Science program. Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Building an Earth Day lesson out of buildings