EXPLORING FIELD-BASED GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION BY UTILIZING MOBILE GEOSPATIAL APPLICATIONS AND THE ESRI STORY MAP PLATFORM

Geospatial technologies improve our understanding and education of the geosciences. Applications like ESRI’s ArcGIS Online and ArcCollector provide platforms to publish and share geoscience data, which is becoming fundamental to educating our students in field-based courses. This project began as part of a graduate seminar in Structural Geology at Ball State University. Using the ArcCollector app to map important geologic contacts and features, a digital field guide was created for the annual Appalachian undergraduate Structural Geology field trip.

Using the ArcCollector application, data points were taken at each point corresponding to a geologic contact or feature that the undergraduate students were required to note in their field books. When all the field data was collected, it was then uploaded into Arc Desktop and published to Arc Online. Using the data from Arc Online, we created a Story Map chronologically displaying the various fieldwork stops in the field guide. In addition to creating GPS points at the locations, multiple photos associated with that point were also uploaded and added to the Story Map. The Story Map is designed to have two information panels: the right panel has a dynamic map including the various points of the project; the left panel displays associated images and important information pertaining to each stop. Also included in the project was a video documenting the extent of one of the projects that was added as an attachment. The final Story Map product is available to view on mobile devices, tablets, and laptops for use in the field as well as classroom settings.

This project affirmed that geospatial technologies are important to both educating and learning. The convenience of having a digital, geospatially related field guide provides a reference for the students to help navigate through the field trip stops as well as a supplemental instructional tool for educators. This application can even serve as a virtual field trip module. The multi-modal aspects of the ESRI Story Map make field geology inclusively accessible to geoscience students of all ability levels. Utilizing these non-traditional technologies for field instruction enriches the conceptual learning and motivation of our geoscience students.