CHALLENGES AND BENEFITS OF INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE EXPERIENCES: FIELD PROGRAM IN THE TURKANA BASIN, KENYA

As the world continues to get smaller many US students find themselves lacking in the diversity and knowledge gained by working in a foreign country. The geoscience workplace is inherently global and will continue to reach evermore remote locations in the 21^st Century. Providing international learning experiences should be a priority of the US higher education system.

Many Geoscience programs at US universities require or encourage field camp courses for undergraduate geology majors. With the goal of preparing students for the workplace or graduate research outside the classroom, courses typically cover geologic mapping, data collection, measuring stratigraphic sections, and the tools used in these activities (including Total Stations, Geographic Information Systems, ground penetrating radar, etc.). However, these traditional programs miss the opportunity to expose students to an international setting where they may one day find themselves working.

International programs expose students to the diversity of language and culture, and promote a multidisciplinary examination of environmental, sustainability and climatic issues. The Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University, in affiliation with the Turkana Basin Institute, is developing a field camp program in the Turkana Basin, Kenya. Core curriculum is designed to cover the traditional field camp materials in one of the most remote and environmentally challenged regions on the planet. Beyond geology, students will interact with sub-Saharan cultures and language, learn about sustainability of water, food and fuel resources, understand the impacts of climate change, and work with the sedimentary deposits that have provided much of what we know about human prehistory. The multidisciplinary experience will provide students a broader perspective for their fieldwork and teach them to assimilate how environmental and climatic changes, that extend beyond geology, contain real impacts in human terms.