Geoscience Outreach

Excerpts from ISGS Circular 142 by Gilbert O. Raasch, 1948:

The overall objective of the Geoscience Outreach Program of the Illinois State Geological Survey is to bridge the gap between the geologist and the general public, and to make the fruits of the science available to the layman according to his particular needs and desires. Geology may be approached through the layman's wish to understand and to interpret a little more of the things of nature-to expand his horizon. Or he may come to the science through a need for assistance in solving some economic problem. Or he may be drawn to look more deeply into geology through a civic-minded interest in, or concern with public questions, such as mineral conservation. 

Geoscience Outreach has a two fold purpose. There is the more immediate one of contributing to the particular individual's intellectual pleasure or material need. But even more fundamental in a democracy, where every voter is a policy-maker, is the necessity for the average citizen to be fully aware of the basic role that mineral resources and their proper utilization play in our social and economic system. A corollary to this broader concept is the defining of the position that the particular state plays in relation to the national and international mineral picture.

"We have unmistaken evidence that this State is scarcely excelled in the extent of her mineral riches."

-Augustus C. French, Governor, January 7, 1851