During the past several decades there has been a growing awareness of the educational benefits to students who participate in undergraduate research experiences. Several programs have been developed to provide summer research opportunities for undergraduates; however these programs are normally limited to only a handful of students each year. For the past half-decade, the Pomona College Geology Department has focused on incorporating multiple original research experiences into the geology curriculum. Here, we describe a multi-year, multi-student field-based research project investigating the origin and development of a suite of deformation bands exposed in southern California.

Students (sophomores to seniors) have participated in this study in two ways. Some are part of a semester-long Research Methods course, in which students are introduced to the research process by conducting original research. In this course students formulate research questions, design and implement procedures for data collection and analysis, and present their results in multiple formats. The topics and faculty change each year. Students from the 1998 Research Methods class investigated porosity changes across deformation bands and the stress field orientation suggested by conjugate deformation bands; students in the fall 2002 Research Methods class may continue similar work. During the intervening years, two students have conducted year-long senior thesis projects which built on results from the previous studies. For their thesis projects, these students investigated the spatial relationship between deformation band characteristics and a nearby fault, and the origin and composition of the host rock.

In this presentation we will discuss the research experiences from the perspective of the students and faculty, and will summarize the benefits and challenges to conducting original field-based student research within the constraints of an entirely undergraduate setting. Some of these challenges include defining an interesting, significant and original project, and time management issues. We will include strategies to address some of the more common challenges; discussion and alternate suggestions are encouraged.