VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS ENHANCE MAP READING SKILLS

Visualization of information presented in topographical and geological maps is problematic for many students in introductory and even advanced courses in the geosciences. Virtual field trips increase student learning for both maps and actual field trips. Traditionally students have been introduced to new areas on field trips creating enthusiasm, but the knowledge does not last as long as desired by the instructor. A first exposure to an area in the classroom before the field experience creates a deeper understanding that lasts longer.

A discussion of topographic maps can be started with quadrangles of the local area. Students should be familiar with the landforms present and, through this familiarity, can see how the contour lines on the map relate to the local landscape. Photos and a field trip can further clarify the relationship between map and the interpretation.

Broadening students' experience beyond their communities can be achieved by the use of maps from other locations. Photographs selected to illustrate major features of the area enhance the exercise and allow students to relate map information to the land. These concepts can also be used to incorporate geological maps into later exercises, and rocks collected in the field can help review rock identification from the start of the semester.

Final map exercises can be developed that incorporate the course field trip and concepts from lecture. A preliminary virtual field trip to the Baraboo area shows introductory students the major features of this classic area prior to the daylong field trip, and later map exercises instill a deeper understanding. Additional map exercises and slides incorporate areas visited by the Lewis and Clark expedition. In Engineering Geology, students examine geologic and topographic maps of the local area prior to the field trip and discussion of the problems the stratigraphy of the area has made for highway reconstruction. A final (second) exercise uses the “overthrust belt” of central Montana to review concepts from early in the semester (swelling clays and karst) to the end of the semester (mass wasting and fluvial geomorphology).