USING VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS OF CONNECTICUT GEOLOGY IN AN INTRODUCTORY GEOLOGY CURRICULUM

Field experiences are the core of an upper-level undergraduate geoscience education, but are often impractical to incorporate into introductory classes due to time, class size, logistical, financial, or legal restrictions. As a result, students in these courses do not have the opportunity to explore any, let alone noteworthy, exposures of local or regional geology in the context of their educational experience. With advances in photographic technology, however, it is possible to use high-resolution digital panoramas to simulate a field experience, from wide-angle outcrop scale overview to ‘nose-to-the-outcrop' close-up views – in essence, a "virtual field trip".

We are in the process of acquiring such panoramas for geologically interesting sites via a GigaPan robotic camera mount (http://www.gigapansystems.com) and a standard digital camera. With the camera at full zoom, a series of photos are acquired, usually within twenty minutes for a typical outcrop. Once processed utilizing the stitching software included with the system, panoramas are uploaded to a website and made publicly available (http://www.gigapan.org). Panoramas for our project can be found by searching this site for the tag 'CCSU'. Users can examine panoramas from low-resolution wide-angle views down to close-up views at the limit of the camera's resolution; they can also save 'snapshots' of a particularly interesting view.

We will be integrating these panoramas into the Physical Geology course this spring, allowing the students to explore the geological history of Connecticut through observation of outcrops and features that they may not otherwise see. Exercises will include both in-class discussion of images in combination with map exercises as well as homework assignments that involve independent analyses of the panoramas. Future work will include expanding this panorama collection to include regional areas of interest, such as structures in the Appalachians.

Use of the GigaPan system is courtesy of the Global Connection Project at Carnegie Mellon University and the Fine Outreach for Science project.