FRESHMAN RESEARCH AS A GEOLOGY RECRUITMENT TECHNIQUE

Few students initially enroll in college or university with the intent of majoring in geology. Instead, most majors are drawn to the program after they take introductory courses because they find the material interesting, relevant and/or practical. At many institutions, geology majors are later offered research opportunities with qualified geoscientists once they reach senior status. Independent research is one of the best teaching/training exercises that students can experience, but we have also begun to use it as a recruitment technique to attract majors into our program. We targeted exceptional freshmen students in our introductory geology courses. There was considerable risk in doing this as the students had limited geological training and few practical geological skills. Some students might also have simply walked away from their projects before completing them. However, we had no choice. We had far more research positions than geology majors available to fill them. Fortunately most of the freshman students found their research experiences rewarding and many claimed better understanding of concepts that they were learning in their introductory geology classes. We now feel that freshman research is one of our better recruitment techniques and try to involve as many non-geology students in our studies as possible. Our most successful project to date involved 14 freshmen students over three years on a study of estuarine sedimentation in southern Alabama. The data from each of the separate research projects has been presented by the students at several national and international meetings and is now being compiled for publication as a single comprehensive research paper.