Over the past ten years, our experiences with middle and high school Earth science students have shown that inquiry-based field trips which highlight "hands-on" geology have been instrumental in the attainment of several important educational goals: critical thinking skills, field techniques, the ability to synthesize information derived from multiple resources, and collect and organize relevant data obtained at a given site.

An Earth science inquiry activity begins with a "seed question" which is the catalyst or launching point for a vigorous, open-ended exploration of a problem and should generate information and more questions. Students who are provided with this structured yet open-ended framework will experiment, and collect and analyze data as they begin to seek connections. The "big picture" will begin to come more and more into focus as students collect data on the many variables associated with the "big picture".

Several geology field trip "sites," all within ten miles of each other, and each unique in its own way, have been used by area college and university geology students for many years. We have used these same sites with our middle and high school students. The sites have provided a wonderful proving ground for inquiry-based earth science teaching and learning.

The Falls Lake ultramafic site is contrasted with a nearby granite bald area. A particular schist formation changes in mineral composition and appearance in a distance of less than ten miles. Here students are encouraged to recognize and define features associated with metamorphic rocks. Two major unrelated structural features, a normal fault and a strike slip fault, add evidence of plate movement to the area geologic history puzzle. By synthesizing evidence collected at each of the five sites, students are challenged to generate the geological story of the Raleigh Belt.