Media Credit: taylor williams / The Western Front Western geology professor David Engebretson pets his guide dog, Fritz, in his Viking Union 552 classroom. [Click to enlarge]

Due to his failing sight, Western geology professor David Engebretson is teaching a class this quarter he developed pioneering the study of earth science in a unique manner - using sound.

"He is developing an entirely innovative class  the sounds on Earth," geology department chair Scott Babcock said. "What he is doing is changing your whole way of perceiving the Earth. I think what he is doing is important."

Born with a rare, unnamed disorder that caused scar tissue to form in his retina, Engebretson, 58, was legally blind by his 30s and has had to rely on his remaining senses to understand and teach about the Earth. After earning a bachelor's degree in geophysics at Western and a doctorate at Stanford University as a young man, he returned to Western to teach geology full-time in 1983, with limited sight.

In addition to his original disorder, Engebretson was diagnosed with cone-rod dystrophy disease in 1995, which caused his eyes' rods and cones to gradually degrade, resulting in further vision loss. Engebretson said he misses conducting fieldwork, such as reading maps and studying minerals.

"The university has been supportive and helpful in allowing me to continue to teach," Engebretson said.

Since spring quarter of 2004, he has worked part-time, teaching geology courses that allow him to instruct students through sound with the Viking Union's sound system.

"Hopefully people will learn that our vision is as overrated as our hearing is overlooked," Engebretson said.

Engebretson took fall quarter 2003 and winter quarter 2004 off because of his worsening eyesight to decide how he could continue to teach. Teaching becomes more strenuous for Engebretson as his blindness increases, geology department manager Chris Sutton said, but Engebretson realized he could teach with sound.

"He took his time off to think about it, and it was his wish to continue to teach," Sutton said.

Washington State Department of Services for the Blind is a rehabilitation agency that supplies Engebretson with tools, such as speaking computers, to do his schoolwork outside of the classroom. The department provided Engebretson with a computer that reads books to him when he places pages on a scanner. He also uses his remaining peripheral vision to decipher the magnified letters of typed or written documents.

"He's amazing," Sutton said. "It's not like he's the poor blind man. Dave is very functional."

This quarter Engebretson teaches Geology 297, sounds on Earth, which he designed. The course's purpose is for each student to study an aspect of Earth's geology and its sounds and then describe the science of how the sounds work, Engebretson said.

Students present their studies to Engebretson and the general public at the end of the quarter in what Engebretson calls a concert.

Students' projects include topics such as earthquakes, ocean tides, whales, room acoustics, dinosaurs and guitars, Engebretson said.

Western senior Ben Cooper, one of Engebretson's students this quarter, is sonifying, or producing, sound from the Milankovitch cycles, a theory that describes the Earth's tilt-axis change during its orbit around the sun. Cooper measures the theoretical amount of solar energy Earth has received in the past 5 million years.

Insolation, the scientific process of measuring the amount of solar energy hitting Earth, depends on the planet's orbit. Cooper described the tilt of Earth's axis as the way a spinning top wobbles when rotating.

"Insolation measures how much solar energy is hitting the earth over a certain amount of area or a given amount of time," Cooper said. "It's like the more solar energy, the louder the tone. The less solar energy, the quieter the tone."

Cooper said he plans to use his research and his passion for music to make songs by repeatedly playing sounds his research acquired.

Inspired by Engebretson, Cooper is a geology major and wants to use sound to teach geology, Cooper said.

"It's a different way of understanding science," Cooper said.

Babcock said working with Engebretson is rewarding. Babcock was a Western geology professor when Engebretson studied in the 1970s.

"His work is some of the most important in plate tectonics," Babcock said. "The whole department, I think, sees him as an inspiration."

Engebretson said his family provides a strong support system. His wife, Deborah Engebretson, 53, is Western's political science department program coordinator; his son, David Engebretson Jr., 37, is also suffering from cone-rod dystrophy disease; and his guide dog, Fritz, takes him everywhere he needs to go.

"There is a lot that you can learn from listening," Engebretson said. "It's a whole different way to learn."

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