USING EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS ON UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECTS TO IMPROVE SCIENCE TEACHING

In most universities, exploration geophysics is an upper level course taught with much emphasis on mathematical and physical theory. Even though mathematical theory is important for a deep understanding of the subject, an introductory course should be applied geophysics where students work on practical applications by using geophysical methods. This will arouse their interest and motivate them to learn the more advanced mathematical theory in advanced courses.

Geophysical techniques are important investigative methods for solving a wide variety of environmental, geologic, engineering and hydrologic problems. The integration of these methods in teaching undergraduate students involves them in active participation in research and puts classroom teaching into a meaningful perspective. The practical application of geophysics makes science education more like science and deviates from the lecture-textbook method which now dominates science teaching.

Four case studies of projects of undergraduates are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the hands-on approach to science teaching. The projects include conducting magnetic, gradiometer and electrical resistivity surveys to locate buried metallic drums and seismic and electrical surveys to locate a water well site for a local village. Gravity surveys were conducted over gas fields to locate geologic structures that may be related to the gas accumulation. In each of these projects, students developed skills in the acquisition of field data and the use of computer software in the analysis of data. Maps are constructed by computer techniques and reasoning skills needed for interpretation of data are learned. The approach also involves the integration of concepts from several disciplines including geophysics, geology, physics, mathematics and computer science.