Anyone in the U.S. who teaches about the geological or biological history of our planet is faced with students who have already concluded that creationism explains the history of the earth. One of the questions that perplexes me is how such students can conclude that their ethnic or religious group has the complete explanation of the origin of the earth and its life, when so many ethnic or religious groups have so many different accounts of those origins.
With that in mind, I've begun compiling short versions of these creation stories for use as readings in my Historical Geology class. The goal is to make students familiar with "origins" folklore from around the world and so to recognize their own inherited myths as folklore as well. For students who do not adhere to creationism, the readings may nonetheless expose them to different views of the relationship between humans and their environment, as the Hopi story below might suggest.
In days gone by, this page offered paper copies of the booklet. The entire thing is now on the Web at http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/CS/CSIndex.html. Feel free to use it as you see fit.
Back to the UGA Geology Home Page.