THE VALUE OF LONG-TERM STUDIES IN TEACHING GEOLOGY

Multi-year measurement of geologic processes with slow rates of change can provide valuable data sets for student learning in the classroom and opportunities for independent research. Here we describe three projects the data for which have been collected for 34, 20, and 10 years respectively: the erosion of a small meandering stream, the weathering of limestone cubes, and local stream discharge, dissolved and suspended load, and major ion chemistry. These data have been used in various ways at all levels of the curriculum from visualizing basic geologic principles in introductory courses to sophisticated statistical analysis and interpretation in upper level courses but always in a context of doing research to discover more about how the earth works. Depending on the project and the schedule for data collection, students can have a major role in the data collection, synthesis, and interpretation while also learning valuable analytical and statistical skills. Because the data sets are the product of many classes of students, there is a strong sense of ownership of the data and thus significant quality control, making the data sets useful as baseline studies for future projects. Where the data collection requires frequent and timely data collection, it is more difficult for students to collect any of the data. However, they may have a hand in analyzing the samples collected in order to learn analytical and interpretive techniques. In some cases the projects have grown to include new long term data sets that augment the original studies.