Restoring Order to Crystal Models: Students Support an Important Teaching Resource

The wooden crystal form models are an important teaching resource at the Institute of Geosciences. Especially during the first semesters, they help students develop an understanding of different crystal systems and their symmetries, while making the often abstract concepts of crystallography more tangible.For this reason, it was important for us – Franziska Stecher, Jakob Allmosloechner, Anna Kővari, Daiaana Lukovtseva, Marvin Spoden, and Lina-Sophie Hoberg – to respond to Dr. Rezvaneh Jamaliashtiani’s call for volunteers from the course “Introduction to Crystallography and Mineralogy” and contribute to reorganizing the models.

Over the course of two days, we reviewed the extensive collection together and reorganized the models into a structured and accessible teaching resource, arranged according to the individual crystal systems. Several filled containers with models requiring reorganization were gradually transformed into a clear classification of the 32 crystal classes – much faster than we had expected after our first impression of the scope of the task. Beyond the practical work itself, it was also fascinating to rediscover the diversity of crystal forms from a different perspective. We hope that the new organization will remain useful for a long time and that the material will continue to be handled with care, so that such a comprehensive reorganization will not be necessary again in the near future – even though the experience itself provided valuable learning opportunities