EARLY EMERSION: A SOPHOMORE LEVEL FIELD PROJECT-BASED CORE COURSE IN GEOLOGY

At the University of Vermont the core course in our department for both majors and minors is a field methods class offered to students in the fall of their sophomore year (3rd semester). The class is conducted in the field and computer lab without formal exams. The field excursions are investigative and challenge students working in groups to develop and apply their observational skills to new or unknown geologic environments preserved in Vermont. We meet for 4-5 hours for two afternoons per week. During this time students develop some of the “first principles” of field geology (e.g. cross cutting relationships, laws of stratigraphy, criteria for identifying geologic features, etc.) by conducting self-contained exercises that, over the course of several weeks, are pieced together to reveal the geologic history of the study area. The students spend ~ 60 hours in the field learning techniques such as making geologic maps (imbedded skills include orienteering, measurement techniques, field note-taking, data reduction and graphical representation), constructing cross sections, and describing geologic relationships. Following several weeks of data collection and interpretation, the students return to our computer lab to present the results of their projects in several professional-style reports and power point presentations to the class. This core course, taken so early in a student’s course of study, insures a common level of knowledge that all subsequent Geology classes build on. When a student enrolls in any junior or senior level class the instructor can be assured that the student has a foundation of basic discipline-specific skills, such as making field observations and map interpretation, as well as non-discipline specific skills, such as writing, oral presentation, problem-solving, and computer skills. The field course also serves the more intangible role of “bonding” each year’s class as they struggle through the physically and intellectually challenging components of the class together. By using field experiences creatively early in our student’s coursework we are able to help them develop an appreciation of how discrete geologic observations are synthesized to produce working models for the geologic history of a region. As a result of this process they develop skills applicable to any field of study.