UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH FROM THE FIELD TO THE CLASSROOM: AN EXAMPLE OF INTEGRATING STUDENT FIELD MAPPING WITHIN GREATER SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH GOALS

The inherent complexity and challenge behind geologic field mapping signifies the necessity for students to gain first hand experience in transferring their classroom knowledge to a field setting, justifiably prior to finishing their undergraduate study and starting any independent research. Frontiers Abroad Aotearoa successfully gives students this unique opportunity by assisting researchers to progressively map the Akaroa Volcanic Complex, Banks Peninsula, New Zealand. This incorporates 3-4 students with an instructor and spans multiple days in a single, previously unmapped area. Throughout the field mapping process, students help contribute to a working GIS database to be used for future research while additionally receiving the invaluable experience of learning how to recognize and map geologic features in the field. The experience in turn challenges students to put what they see firsthand within the spatial context of the other observed geologic features, such as determining one lava flow package from another or projecting dyke measurements into the ground—a skill that cannot necessarily be taught exclusively within the classroom. Hypotheses subsequently raised by students regarding their field data can serve as the basis for future research led by their instructors after mapping has finished, which invites further study on an area with which students are already deeply familiar.

The final, overarching experience results in a mutually beneficial field mapping campaign, with students gaining valuable field and research skills under the guidance of instructors who themselves have academic investment in the work conducted by their students. This is a process that ultimately brings the field back into the classroom, while simultaneously undertaking the continued creation of a digital map and geologic database whose work and developmental processes dictate the constant refining of the methods that first put them in place. The research done by students and the improved methods for more efficient field-work bring the classroom back into the field, and this back-and-forth relationship helps contribute to a more holistic learning experience for students and instructors alike, all while serving to break new ground on an area of geologic importance.