Question: Why study geology? (a) Because you can impress your friends when you're watching Jeopardy on television by screaming out "WHAT IS BAUXITE!" for an answer about a mineral from which aluminum is extracted. (b) Because you can prepare yourself and family for surviving the next "big one" -- be it an earthquake, flood or landslide -- and be able to pick a geologically suitable spot for a house or business. (c) Because University of California, Davis, geology professor Ken Verosub is teaching the class. Directly from the keyboards and pencils of students, the comments below help explain why Verosub pops up as "the answer" for many students and why he has won the $30,000 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement this year. "I think he is a great teacher," comments a student from last year's Geology 1 class. "I had a course from him before, and that was my sole reason for taking this course." A student from a fall Geology 17 class writes, "The enthusiasm of the professor is exceptional. Class is exciting; it is never boring." Believed to be the largest individual award of its kind in the nation, the prize pays tribute to faculty members on campus who combine outstanding undergraduate teaching with remarkable scholarly achievements. It was established by the UC Davis Foundation through gifts from the Davis Chancellor's Club Fellows. The award was increased this year from $25,000. The prize is significant because "it recognizes those who can teach undergraduates and at the same time do the things they need to do to maintain their scholarship and excel in research," says Ken Nitzberg, chair of the foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports UC Davis. The prize will be awarded to Verosub at a gala dinner May 30 in Freeborn Hall. "Professor Verosub has found the antidote to what could be a large and impersonal lecture class -- slides, demonstrations, discussions, class participation and e-mail -- but the real secret to his teaching success is his enthusiasm, relevance and clarity," said UC Davis Chancellor Larry N. Vanderhoef. "Every day, he shows that a teaching scientist can engage and inspire students, even while unraveling paleomagnetic mysteries in a world-class research laboratory." For as long as he can remember, Verosub, 51, wanted to be a teacher. He was the first person in his family to earn a doctoral degree, joining the UC Davis geology department in 1975. He has since gone on to receive numerous accolades for his research and teaching. Known as an energetic classroom teacher, he was awarded the UC Davis Distinguished Teaching Award in 1988 by the UC Davis Academic Senate. Verosub has set out to completely revise the way undergraduate science courses are taught to non-science majors. In fact, he will do almost anything to avoid yammering for 50 minutes to a quiet, passive audience in a large introductory university lecture class. And his students are grateful. "Memorizing terms isn't what [this class] is all about," one student pointed out in last year's class essay. "True, I can tell you what a moraine is, and I know what a pixel is, but from this class I have gained an understanding of concepts; I feel I can think on my own." One recent morning, as the 240-seat Kleiber lecture hall filled with students, the magnificent deep tones of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony reverberated. "It's big," Verosub explained to the full classroom, "just right for today's topic: plate tectonics." Then he read aloud from the daily newspaper -- blending the overnight geology-related news into past and future lessons. In a few days, he would send other news stories by e-mail to his students, along with regular summaries of important points from the class and the text. Soon, he eased into his lecture on plate tectonics, illustrating the planet's moving crust with evocative slides. Verosub interrupted the dutiful note taking: "Plates move 5 to 10 centimeters a year," he said. "What else moves at that speed?" "Glaciers," said a voice from the back of the class. "Mrak Hall," said a jokester from the front, referring to the campus adminstration building. "Fingernails," Verosub revealed. "They grow at about the same rate continents move." Hmmm. While some in the class considered their fingers, Verosub continued. "OK, now take out your cards," he commanded, talking about index cards students use to respond to conceptual questions. The cards are coded by nicknames so that students don't have to worry about giving incorrect answers. For Verosub, the thinking process behind the answer matters more than the answer itself. He showed a slide of a tree in Australia killed by an earthquake and asked students to identify the type of earthquake and probable cause of death for the tree. Then, he said, discuss it with your neighbor. The class erupted with talking, pointing, listening, reconsidering. The lecture continued. The problem in California, Verosub said, is not that Los Angeles will fall into the ocean. Drawing on the discussion of the slide, he explained that the San Andreas is a right-lateral strike-slip fault. The students nod knowingly after the card exercise. "Los Angeles is moving north toward San Francisco," he said, "and the real problem is that the two could conceivably become twin cities (but not for several million years)." Verosub finished the session with a tour of the state's major fault line, from north to south, linking plate tectonics to past and present earthquakes, the evaluation of risk in California, and current legislation about seismic hazards and earthquake insurance. In all his classes, Verosub reaches out to students with music, current events, slides, e-mail, lots of class participation. He constantly searches for more ideas. This quarter he began his Geology 1 course by having students stand on their chairs for a different perspective -- an idea nabbed from the movie "The Dead Poets Society." In the back of his mind, all the time, he's thinking about teaching. "Paper or plastic," his grocery clerk asks. Great question. He'll use that one in the class on waste disposal later this term, the one that opens with Ravel's "Bolero," which like solid waste just keeps building up. Verosub's commitment to engage students as active learners extends beyond the class. He directs the new Davis Honors Challenge, a campuswide undergraduate honors program. He has worked toward improving earth science teaching in grades kindergarten through high school with teacher training workshops, teacher education research and participation in the adopt-a-scientist program. He has become a leader in the national movement to reform science education, participating in national conferences, advising government and private organizations, and contributing to the literature. Meanwhile, Verosub is recognized as one of the leaders in research on the magnetic properties of sediments and sedimentary rocks. When a lava flow cools or a sediment is deposited in a lake or ocean, the magnetic grains become aligned parallel to the Earth's magnetic field. Verosub studies this magnetization by collecting samples in the field and measuring their direction of magnetization in the laboratory. He is adapting these methods to study environmental problems in California and elsewhere. This work will be speeded up 20 to 50 times, now that his lab contains the world's only long-core cryogenic magnetometer, an instrument that can measure entire core samples rather than smaller segments. With the unique perspective of a physicist-turned-geologist, Verosub looks beyond his data to ask fundamental questions about the geological, geophysical and geochemical processes that have created that data. As a result of his studies, Verosub is widely acknowledged as someone who fully understands what rocks and sediments are telling him about global changes in climate over the past 2.5 million years, tectonic activity in California in the past 10 million years and the history of the earth's magnetic field for the past 100 million years. This broad perspective on research makes it easy for Verosub to convey to students the ragged, irregular and sometimes chaotic way that scientists actually work. With this realistic view of science, students often raise questions that lead him to new avenues of research. "Research enhances and informs the teaching," Verosub says, "while the teaching stimulates and inspires the research."