ONE PART SCIENCE, ONE PART ART, TWO PARTS LOCAL RELEVANCE; A SOUTH ALABAMA RECIPE FOR BUILDING A BETTER EARTH HISTORY LAB MANUAL

Sharp increases in the cost of undergraduate tuition are forcing educators to rethink some of the traditional expenses incurred by students at colleges and universities. A quality textbook is vital for most geology courses, but significant savings can be made through the use of an in-house laboratory manual. In addition to being a cost cutting measure (our printed manual is 75% cheaper than those previously used), internally produced laboratory manuals can better stimulate student interest by emphasizing local/regional Earth history events. This is particularly desirable for regions such as the Gulf Coast which seldom feature in store-bought Earth history manuals. Our in-house manual covers major global geological events including evolution, but it focuses on Alabama stressing our stratigraphy, structure, flora/fauna and sedimentology whenever possible to explain Earth history. Exercises are also designed with significant local content (e.g., stratigraphic correlations, state fossils) which students appear to appreciate. Many claim that it is easier to visualize past events (e.g., climatic change, sea level oscillations) when using their own back yard as a case study.

Internally-produced laboratory manuals are used at many other institutions, but we have attempted to make our version also relevant to non-geology majors by adding material that crosses disciplinary lines. For example, some exercises have an archaeological or economics slant. We also seek student participation to constantly revise manual content. Fine art majors are encouraged to use their talents to help us improve illustrations. They provide sketches of fossils that were drawn during some of the exercises allowing us to regularly update the manual with new, more relevant, and copy write free material. Some students have even earned additional course credit for their artwork. A few have opted to take additional geology classes suggesting that our approach may also have student recruitment potential.