OUR TIME AROUND THE LAKE: A HIKING TOUR HISTORICAL GEOLOGY GROUP PROJECT

A student group work project involving the creation of a guided hiking tour matched to the geologic time scale has the advantage of informing public through outreach, while reinforcing concepts in a historical geology course. In this project, students collaborated on developing a hiking tour around Devil’s Lake in Devil’s Lake State Park, Wisconsin, but it can be replicated nearly any place imaginable. Students worked in teams to create information views for individual time periods which were enhanced with visuals in a google drawing. The individual drawings are accessed via hyperlinked buttons on an online map of the hiking path. The entire project is then organized into a google site and made available to the public.

To create the information views; geologic time periods were broken out and/or lumped accordingly with the number of groups desired, corresponding with the course enrollment. Students worked in groups to first develop a 600 – 1,200 word summary of their assigned time periods. After feedback is received from the instructor the students adjust their write-ups as needed and incorporate them into a google drawing. The students then work to enhance the drawings visually with various figures, which may include: a map of the tectonic plate alignment (where appropriate), flora and fauna present, type environments, etc. Very little guidance was given allowing for creativity, although some standardization may help increase the overall appearance in future applications.

To create the map; the instructor broke individual trail segments into geologic time units. The map scaling was accomplished using the split command in ESRI ArcMAP. Other elements, such as the lake outline, park roads and parking areas were digitized from various sources. To incorporate the actual location geology; the map scale was adjusted to intersect a great unconformity outcrop encountered on the hiking trail.