THE TEXAS HYDRO GEO WORKSHOP – A FIELD ORIENTED EDUCATIONAL WEEKEND FOR STUDENTS, EDUCATORS, AND PRACTITIONERS

Decreases in funding have resulted in some geoscience departments limiting or eliminating field work and field trips from their educational programs. In some cases, students are entering the workforce with very little hands-on field experience. The Texas Hydro Geo Workshop was created to bring students, educators, and practitioners together for a field oriented educational event. The workshop was created to increase the exposure of students to field data collection methods. First held in 2014, the workshop is an annual event hosted by the Bexar Grotto of the National Speleological Society and is held at Cave Without a Name near Boerne, (San Antonio) Texas.

Approximately 30 modules are available to the participants, including drilling and logging of soil and rock samples, surface and borehole geophysics, stream gauging, tracer testing, borehole cutting and E-log Correlation, field safety, water sampling, well measuring, field digital data collection, cave geology, cave safety and mapping, karst feature evaluation, career development, and many others.

The workshop is in its third year with more than 300 participants attending the weekend event. The event includes presentations by a keynote speaker and several ‘lightning’ talks. Universities from across the state and region are represented. Students are provided a T-shirt, geology book, three meals, educational material, and lots of exposure to methods and professionals in the field. The event has a number of sponsors which help to hold down costs for participants. Grotto members staff the event and modules are presented by leading experts in the field. The workshop has been very successful with a waiting list to attend each year. Those interested in this event should visit the event website at http://caves.org/grotto/bexargrotto/HydroGeo/.