USING MUSIC , VIDEOS AND FIELD TRIPS TO ENHANCE GEOLOGY OF NATIONAL PARK CLASSES

Teaching a class in the Geology of the National Parks can be exciting and challenging. My classes are large so my exams have to be primarily multiple choice. I want the students to write, though. I use extra credit exercises to get them to write more. I have a collection of videos on the national parks that are from public broadcasting programs and also commercial video companies. I have the students write summaries on the videos which are on reserve in the library. They get 5 percentage points for each hour video (minimum of one page writeup). I also have the students grade the video which gets them to critically look at the videos. The final three lines of the summary are the evaluation. These exercises really get the students to see professional videos on the parks and write up what they have seen! I also give extra credit to students who visit a national park during the term. They get 10 percentage points for a day trip. We also visit one park as a class, Mt. Rainier. I also introduce each lecture with a song of the day which relates to the park. I will have copies of the song list at the presentation.