DYNAMIC ICELAND GEOVENTURE 2015: AN INTERACTIVE FIELD EXPERIENCE IN SUPPORT OF TEACHER PREPARATION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

The most meaningful learning experiences for natural science educators involve experiential fieldwork. This is especially true for the earth sciences, where students often struggle to grasp the magnitude and scale of important concepts and complex processes. Iceland is a particularly appropriate location for science teacher fieldwork because it uniquely captures a broad range of active Earth Science processes and environments.

Such was the case for ten earth science (K-12) educators, four college faculty and two professional, plus a few “students of the Earth” who participated in GSA’s 2015 Dynamic Iceland GeoVenture. Our 11-day excursion engaged a comprehensive collection of natural processes including mantle dynamics, plate tectonics, seismicity, volcanism, geothermal phenomena, alpine and continental glaciation, outburst floods, eustatic and isostatic adjustment, coastal processes, fossil evidence for climate change, fluvial erosion, soil erosion, terrestrial accretion, and the impact that each has had on the human environment.

Academic interactions and exchange developed naturally in the field, often prompted by the immediacy of field evidence. Site visits were followed by evening group discussions, during which ideas for curriculum development were discussed. Immediate group feedback led to draft materials that were summarized and refined for classroom use through subsequent email exchanges.

What we learned is that instructors at any level who teach from a broad experiential background can more effectively capture the imaginations and stimulate the intellectual curiosities of their students when employing their own field experience. Iceland’s diverse and dynamic nature offers tangible potential for teacher preparation, input to curriculum development and reinforced introductory college level instruction. All Earth Science educators would benefit from informed exposure to the geoscience diversity and dynamism that Iceland has to offer.