This activity describes one-day field trips for introductory Physical Geology or Environmental Geology courses that are designed around a central environmental theme (e.g., air quality, water quality, economic development, environmental justice, etc.) and visit urban locations (e.g., hazardous waste sites, solid and liquid waste disposal sites, brownfield redevelopment sites, industrial complexes, or sites with ongoing environmental restoration efforts). Students are provided with a guidebook containing one-page description of each stop on the trip, along with a list of questions to stimulate discussion among students and faculty. The guidebook gives students food for thought during the bus ride to each site, preparing them to formulate their own questions for our guides at each stop. The guidebook also serves as a tangible reminder of the trip for each student to take away and potentially discuss with other students or family members. Finally, the one-page summaries from the guidebook can also be used by course instructors as handouts or PowerPoint slides to tie field trip experiences into classroom instruction and discussion. Uses online and/or real-time data Addresses student fear of quantitative aspect and/or inadequate quantitative skills Uses geophysics to solve problems in other fields

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This activity offers one of the reflection activities we developed in our learning community "Exploring Natural History in Word and Field." In this class, the students learn about natural history by reading natural history essays and participating in field trips. In this activity, we use reflection before and during a field trip to an Old Growth Forest to help our students clarify their own stance for a Position Paper on whether and under what conditions logging should be allowed in Old Growth Forests.

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Prior to tackling this assignment, students have been out in the field at a series of outcrops in eastern New York and western Vermont, where they have made observations, collected data, and taken notes as concept sketches. A concept sketch has a central graphic (in this case, a field sketch done by the students) surrounded by concept captions that convey the observations made, plus data collected, and the interpretations of those observations. Because many of my students still struggle to separate observations and interpretations, I commonly have them underline their observations in one color and their interpretations in another. Concept sketches are an outstanding way to have students take notes in the field because they have to decide what to illustrate in order to convey the points that they want to make. In the downloads under "Teaching materials and tips" below, you can download more information about concept sketches.

After returning from the field, students put together a set of concept sketches that convey not only their field observations and interpretations but that also integrate thin sections and a regional tectonic model. Students have the option of using field photos in their concept sketches, and I also provide photomicrographs and plate tectonic block models for them to incorporate. Students also make a concept sketch from their cross sections, with concept captions that provide evidence for their subsurface interpretations. Each student also writes a brief introduction providing the context for their set of concept sketches.

In the past, I have had students write illustrated field reports or field guides based on their field work, but I have found that I learn much more about what students have learned and their abilities to explain it by reading through their concept sketches. These concept sketch collections are also MUCH faster to grade than pages of text with the occasional figure!

I have also been struck by the fact that my students' concept sketches convey the sense that they are really anxious to show me what they learned in the field. In the download at the bottom of this web page, I have included scans of some of their concept sketches at the end of the actual assignment. Please note that most of them were originally done on 11x17 size paper.

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The assignment will begin with teaching proper water collection and use of equipment for hydrochemical field work. Once the class is familiar with sample collecting technques, the class takes a field trip to several springs within the Madera Limestone, Sandia Mountains New Mexico. Collecting waters and obtaining hydrochemical field parameters for each spring location as well as collecting groundwater from one well in the same aquifer. Returning to the lab and preparing and running samples for ion analysis.

Spring waters will then be compared to well water and average precipitation data available from the USGS. Geochemical modeling will then be completed to understand the proportion of aquifer, precipitation and possible deeply sourced waters found in the spring waters.

The outcomes include 1) teaching proper sampling techniques 2) proper preparation of samples for ion analysis 3) Geochemical modeling to understand mixing

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The Ute People: Stop 4 Museum of the West Virtual Tour. Watch this short video to learn about a Museum of the West exhibit or collection to preview your field trip or for a virtual field trip if you are unable to attend in person. The Museum of the West is part of the Museums of Westen Colorado. The Ute people once called all of Colorado their home. Shortly before Grand Junction was founded, the Utes were forcibly removed to Utah. David Bailey describes what life was like for the Utes prior to their expulsion from the area.

Students watch a Ute History video and analyze artifacts from the Ute culture including weapons

This is a virtual field trip to Iceland's Laki Fissure, which explores the 1783 eruption as a type example of a large historical lava flow eruption that had a significant impact on the local human population and the global environment. Students explore the climate impacts of the eruption, as well as the different types of volcanic deposits it produced. Students use their observations to develop hypotheses about past and future volcanic hazards associated with the volcano.

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This is a virtual field trip to Italy's Mt. Vesuvius, which explores the 79AD eruption of the volcano. Students explore the excavated cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as the different types of volcanic deposits found to have buried those cities. Students use their observations to develop hypotheses about past and future volcanic hazards associated with the volcano.

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In Exercise 1, students are given modified data published by Cole & Friberg, 1989, Stratigraphy and Sedimentation of the Book Cliffs, Utah. They follow instructions to construct a measured section. In Exercise 2, students work either with polarized microscopic photographs linked online to specific units in their measured section or directly with the thin-sections. Grain characteristics are measured and observed. In Exercise 3, facies units are determined on the basis of bedding, sedimentary structures, trace and macrofossil evidence. An interpreted facies overlay of their first graphically generated measured section. A table is also generated to support their facies determinations. In Exercise 4, correlations are made using an east-west transect of several stratigraphic sections. Shallowing-upward cycles and exposure and flooding surfaces are marked; lateral facies correlations are made.

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This project is designed to get students thinking about some of the basic properties of sedimentary rocks that can be used to interpret their environment of deposition. In particular, it focues on characterizing lithology (rock type), bedding style, and grain size for rock units from the Pennsylvanian age Jackfork Group.

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Volcano shape is strongly controlled by eruptive style, which in turn is controlled by magma composition and tectonic setting. This lab utilizes Google Earth, which takes students on a virtual field trip, in order to give them the opportunity to examine volcanoes from around the globe, and to interpret the tectonic settings in which they form. After completing this activity students will be able to describe and identify the common volcano types, and relate volcano types with associated volcanic hazards, tectonic setting, and geographic location.

In preparation for this walking field trip to the San Andreas Fault,
students ideally have attended two lecture sessions where plate
boundary processes and features have been discussed formally. The
expected outcomes include students that are capable of calculating
rupture length based on elastic rebound theory, recurrence interval,
and relative plate motion and rates. The field trip procedure and
details for each stop are included in the lab manual below.

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This virtual field trip takes students to the site of a local groundwater controversy in Gallatin Valley, Montana. Students virtually travel through seven stops which highlight the groundwater hydrology, local geology, geologic history of the valley and local groundwater policy. During the virtual field trip, students are asked to role-play as geologists hired to evaluate the area. Ultimately, they are asked to formulate an argument for or against the development of a nearby subdivision and to support that argument with evidence they gathered on the virtual field trip. Evidence may include observational field notes, hypotheses and questions regarding the geology and geohydrology of the area as well as limited hydrological data. Students must produce a final report discussing the decision they made as a consulting geologist. Reports should include a well-supported argument using the data and information collected during the virtual field trip. This virtual field trip gives students an opportunity to explore a local dispute regarding groundwater and learn how geology, geohydrology and scientific data are involved in policy issues.

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The first lab exercise was preceded by an all day field trip that introduced the surficial and bedrock geology, geological history and the hydrologic and meteorologic instrumentation in the watershed. In the first lab meeting students were introduced to the research question (i.e. What hydrogeological conditions contributed to the failure of the W.H. Miner hydroeletric dam?) and to the specific goals and objectives of the first exercise. The series of exercises introduced geomorphic and hydrogeologic methods of analysis, provided experience with field and laboratory instrumentation and technologies, reinforced quantitative and communication skills and gave students the opportunity to collect and analyze their own data to solve a real-world problem.
Addresses student fear of quantitative aspect and/or inadequate quantitative skills
Uses geomorphology to solve problems in other fields

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Western Mining History presents a short tour of the Western Museum of Mining and Industry (WMMI). Visit the Museum website for more information: https://wmmi.org/ Western Mining History is an historical site that provides databases, information on mining, mining towns, gold and Photos and maps of the western United States. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site. Visit the Museum website at: www.WMMI.org

Biodiversity is the spectacular variety of life on Earth and the essential interdependence among all living things. Students begin to learn about the term biodiversity at its most basic level. On their first field trip, students observe a natural space and report on what they see. They also begin to see the need for keeping written records and how to make scientific observations of their site. A series of optional mapping activities are presented that develop the skills required to create detailed and representational maps derived from observations and data.

Through an adult-led field trip, students organized into investigation teams catalogue the incidence of plastic debris in different environments. They investigate these plastics according to their type, age, location and other characteristics that might indicate what potential they have for becoming part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Students collect qualitative and quantitative data that may be used to create a Google Earth layer as part of a separate activity that can be completed at a computer lab at school or as homework. The activity is designed as a step on the way to student's creation of their own GIS Google Earth layer. It is, however, possible for the field trip to be a useful learning experience unto itself that does not require this last GIS step.

In a student-led and fairly independent fashion, data collected in the associated field trip activity are organized by student groups to create useful and informative Google Earth maps. Each team creates a map, uses that map to analyze the results, adjusts the map to include the analysis results, and then writes a brief summary of findings. Primarily, questions of fate-and-transport of plastics are are explored. If data was gathered in the field trip but the teacher does not desire to do the mapping activity, then alternative data presentation and analysis methods are suggested.

The San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains provide an excellent setting for exploring the evolution and diversity of crystalline rocks in California. The oldest rock-forming events which can be explored in these ranges involved episodic Paleoproterozoic magmatism and orogenesis extending from 1.81 to 1.65 Ga. Rock units of this age are widespread both east and west of the San Andreas fault. This Paleoproterozoic tectonism was followed by intrusion of younger Mesoproterozoic anorogenic igneous rocks that are areally limited, but well exposed in the San Gabriel Mountains as 1.19 Ga gabbro, anorthosite, and syenite. Proterozoic igneous activity and tectonism in southwest North America was followed by rifting during the Neoproterozoic, which led to development of the Cordilleran geosynclinal belts. Belts of rocks within the geosyncline in southern California trend northeast-southwest, with deeper water rocks to the northwest, and Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks in the San Bernardino Mountains belong to the transition zone between the cratonal and deeper water miogeoclinal sequences. Passive margin sedimentation ended with initiation of arc magmatism oriented along a northwest to southeast trend in Late Permian time. A diverse group of Mesozoic plutons and dike swarms as young as Late Cretaceous in age characterize the crystalline terranes of both the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains, culminating in emplacement of large calc-alkalic intrusive suites in both ranges about 78 Ma.

The diversity of ages and types of crystalline rocks makes a field trip through either or both of these ranges a great opportunity to engage students in active learning while linking petrology and historical geology course content in a field context. Students can utilize rock identification skills learned in the laboratory, and with knowledge of available geochronologic data, can construct a more detailed geologic time scale for the region.

Here we will provide an example of a one-day trip to examine Proterozoic metamorphic and Mesozoic intrusive igneous rocks that are easily accessible in roadcuts and on short field traverses along National Forest roads. The trip is adapted from more detailed field guides and road logs for this region (principally Barth et al., 2001), with a focus on undergraduate learning.

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