VIRTUAL FIELD EXPERIENCES on THE LAKE MICHIGAN SHORELINE NEAR MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN: A 10 YEAR PERSPECTIVE

The Lake Michigan shoreline near Milwaukee, with many public access locations and a variety of shoreline attributes, provides an excellent outdoor laboratory for introductory earth science classes. The highly varied bedrock of the state along with the almost complete glaciation during the Pleistocene provides material along the shoreline for many different lessons.

A virtual field trip to 5 beaches was developed ten years ago in conjunction with the School of Education as a resource for pre-service and in-service teachers with the intent of providing earth science content in the context of a city environment. The web link is (https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/caberg/www/mtp5/virft/beaches/index.shtml). The site is still used for pre and post field trip reviews by many local educators, but may soon be replaced with a version which is more inquiry based and provides a broader educational look at the shoreline. The new version is modeled after the VFE’s developed by the Paleontological Research Institute and the Museum of the Earth. The advent of Google earth, YouTube, digital cameras with video capabilities, and readily available graphical organizers such as PowerPoint makes the development and modifying of VFE’s significantly easier, and readily accessible to teachers and students. The web link for two versions is, (https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/xythoswfs/webview/fileManager.action?stk=4DEC6279B3809FB&entryName=%2Fwkean%2Fpublic%2FBill+Kean+VFEs&msgStatus=)

We will compare the old with the new, and review comments made by pre-education majors that have experienced both the actual and virtual field trips. Several short VFE’s produced by undergraduates for advanced geology classes will also be presented.