TEACHING GEOLOGY IN THE FIELD: A MODEL FOR BROADENING PARTICIPATION AND FOR INTEGRATIVE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Lake Superior State University (LSSU) uses a field based educational pedagogy to engage both high school and undergraduate students to study geoscience problems. Through field based projects students are challenged to integrate different types of knowledge and information to address real world geoscience problems. These projects are designed to span the breadth of the geosciences giving students experience working on different types of problems in different settings as they develop their abilities and interest in a variety of geoscience careers.

The GRANITE program, Geological Reasoning And Natives Investigating The Earth, is a field based geoscience program targeting Native American and other underrepresented high school students. Students traveled from Michigan to the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota as part of a 15 day field excursion during which they undertook a variety of geoscience field project. Projects and localities of interest to Native American communities were selected where students worked with local Native American experts. The result of a recent survey of GRANITE participants shows that over 25% are considering an undergraduate geoscience major, over 33% of participants are planning to major in STEM fields at university, over 50% are considering enrolling in university level geoscience courses, and 100% are planning to pursue a university degree.

The Lake Superior State University undergraduate geology curriculum is field based and project centered where students typically work 80+ days in the field on geoscience problems. These field based projects are designed to emphasize critical thinking, problem solving and integration of intra and inter disciplinary concepts while students solve real world problems. The field activities also develop students’ quantitative, communication and teamwork skills. From 2004-2014 62% of LSSU undergraduate geology graduates have gone on to graduate school, 30% have accepted geoscience employment and the remaining 8% have accepted employment in other fields or are unknown.

Thus through innovative field based geoscience projects Lake Superior State University engages underrepresented populations and helps prepare the next generation for exciting careers as geoscientists.