DEVELOPING FIELD GEOLOGY COMPETENCE IN THE 21st CENTURY, ONE STEP AT A TIME

Traditional Field Camps for geology education range from full funded permanent field camps or mini campuses, to small, tenting field sites. These field camps may require a substantial investment by the hosting school. Many of these fixed sites have been established to solve regional geologic problems.

Schools lacking the financial support for such field camps are more numerous and have to provide field geology experience for their undergraduates in other ways. We have opted for a more mobile and variable field experience that nevertheless allows the student to develop the field skills of observation and interpretation through a judicious choice of outcrop based problems. This approach allows the student to more fully focus on the outcrop characteristics and understand the potential processes that are demonstrated there. One builds knowledge a little bit at a time. If the focus is on observation and interpretation of the outcrop, developing multiple hypotheses and evaluating each one to determine the most likely will be the end product. With such a small problem it also is possible to incorporate modern technology, such as use of a total station, satellite imaging, or PDA with Arcpad

By focusing on one outcrop the student is relieved of the necessity of learning the specific stratigraphic section, the regional geology and the attendant fauna. Information overload is thereby avoided by de-emphasizing the big picture. For the beginning geologist, the over arching regional picture may be more of a distraction than a help and may also cause the student to force fit the field site into a presumed regional problem. The regional picture is, after all, developed after the many field exposures are synthesized into a whole. Moreover the entry level geology students will most likely work on local problems of a regional nature.