If you are not familiar with the teaching methods of geologist and SDSU professor emeritus Pat Abbott, your questions about his online lecture series on “Mother Nature in San Diego” might include, “What topics will he be discussing?” Or, “What might I be learning?” Or, “How scary is the earthquake stuff going to be?”
But if you are well acquainted with Abbott’s classroom and YouTube style, you will be asking what his lecture audiences are always asking:
“What will he be wearing?”
For this new lecture series presented by the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, which kicks off on Nov. 11, Abbott will be deploying many of the audience-friendly skills he perfected over his four decades of commanding large halls full of distracted college students.
The native San Diegan will keep his Mission Trails lectures lively with eye-catching images, prescient historical facts, and vivid descriptions of the ways natural disasters have shaped our county. And he will be doing this while wearing very bright, topic-appropriate items from a closet that might have been curated by Crayola.
“The problem with teaching science is that you have people taking it as a required course. You have to work to get their interest,” said Abbott, who taught at SDSU from 1971 until 2006.
“So I would always wear a different colored coat, shirt and tie every day of the session. And I would change the colors based on the subject. I would wear an orange coat over a black shirt for wildfires, or if I was talking about floods, I would wear blue. Sometimes I would get a (student) comment card where someone would say, ‘There were some days I didn’t feel like going to class, but I wanted to see what he was wearing.'”
Abbott’s “Mother Nature in San Diego” talks finds him back in the Mission Trails “OnTopic” lecture series by popular demand. These lectures are a follow-up to his series from earlier this year on the geology of Mission Trails Park, which was based on his book, “Geology: Mission Trails Park.” Those talks were so well-received, Abbott and the park’s foundation decided that a return engagement was in order.
This new series is based on Abbott’s long-running “Natural Disasters” general-education course, which made science accessible to the SDSU masses by combining theatrical demonstrations on tornados, floods and other dramatic natural events with scientific and historical explanations about why these things happen and what they mean.
“The way I look at it is, if things happened in the past, they can happen again. I try to broaden people’s grasp of the climate by adding more of the historical aspect,” said Abbott, whose “Natural Disasters” textbook is on its way to a 12th edition.
“I like to show the longer geological scale, rather than the political type things. If you go back, it is fascinating to see how different the Earth has been at different times.”
The first of the new “Mother Nature in San Diego” series, which debuts on Thursday, looks at climate change. The Nov. 18 episode tackles earthquakes. Abbott will be talking floods on Dec. 2, and on Dec. 9, the subject will be wildfires.
Abbott promises that he will not be repeating any of the colorful ensembles he wore during his geology series. And thanks to the blend of fun and fact that Abbott likes to call, “edutainment,” the information will feel fresh, even when his sources are 541 million years old.
“He really makes geology and earth science accessible,” said Jennifer Morrissey, executive director of the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, where Abbott is an adviser. “He can explain complex processes in layperson , and he is really inspiring. He makes you want to learn more about the world around you.”
For Abbott, who grew up in Kensington and got his bachelor’s from SDSU and his doctorate from the University of Texas, Austin, the world is his classroom. He has been with Smithsonian Journeys for more than a decade, and in the pre-pandemic times, Abbott led educational tours to such exotic spots as Antarctica, Iceland and Patagonia.
Abbott has lectured on cruise ships and led tours on every continent, but San Diego will always be home. And Mission Trails Regional Park will always be one of his favorite hometown spots. He is an expert on the park’s scientific life, but the professor is not immune to its timeless magic.
There are lessons to be learned from that, too.
“What I love is that it is a wilderness park, but it’s right here,” Abbott said from his home near SDSU. “You can go out and be totally separated from urban life and all its demands on you. You can go back and more than 90 percent of it is the same as it was 100 years ago or 1,000 years ago. Mission Trails Park is a treasure.”
Pat Abbott’s “Mother Nature in San Diego” online lecture series begins Nov. 11 at 6 p.m. The four-part series is free, but registration is required. Go to mtrp.org for information.
