A LARGE ENROLLMENT EARTH SCIENCE CLASS FIELD EXPERIENCE

Eastern Illinois University requires a field trip for the large introductory Earth Sciences course. The lecture sections typically have 100 to 110 students with multiple lab sections of over 30. Various field trips have been tried over the years with differing levels of success and problems. With current transportation costs, attendance/participation concerns, logistics and vehicle access problems, and liability exposure a geologic campus tour with an online extension is now being offered.

This campus tour features stops with activities of petrologic, paleontologic, geomorphic, and mapping nature. A geology major work-study student is brought along to assist with traffic flow and to help with questions during the various activities. At the close of the trip, students are assigned a brief write up based on an online field trip featuring the local geology. To minimize any attendance problems, the trip takes place during the regularly scheduled lab time, this allows students to participate without any course conflicts.

Formal assessment of this trip is pending “getting the bugs out” of the trip. Based on informal comments, students have generally had a positive reaction to the trip.