VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS THROUGH IBOOKS FOR IMPLEMENTATION IN HISTORICAL GEOLOGY AT A TWO-YEAR COLLEGE

Patrick Henry Community College (PHCC) is a two-year college located in Martinsville, Virginia, a town that leads the Commonwealth in unemployment (18.5% in 2011). The per capita income is around $20,000 and 25% of the households make under $15,000. School related expenses and family responsibilities make it difficult for PHCC geology students to take part in field trips that extend beyond the scheduled class and laboratory hours. Virtual field trips (VFT) are a viable option to foster observation and geologic processing skills in situations when in-person field trips are impossible. A professional development grant (SU2012-486P-PF) was obtained from the Virginia Community College System to help fund the development of virtual field trips. Photographs and video were taken at three main areas, Badlands National Park, the Black Hills, and Oakes Quarry Park (a city park in Fairborn, OH). Oakes Quarry Park is the first VFT to have been completed using iBooks Author. A beta version includes an explanation of the project and the history of the park, photographs, video segments, review questions, and a “post-field trip” student assignment. The goal is to create VFT for each of the three areas mentioned and later expand to additional areas, and have all of them freely accessible through iBooks for anyone with an iOS device.