ACTIVE LEARNING APPLIED TO UNDERGRADUATE FIELD STUDIES

Recent advances in geoscience education have shown many benefits to integrating active learning practices into courses, but there is considerably less focus on incorporating these practices into field trips. In an attempt to include more active learning activities in our undergraduate curriculum, a multiphase field/class project was developed for a well-visited outcrop in the Arkoma Basin. Working in groups, students were asked to examine and then log a segment of the outcrop, and make an interpretation of the depositional setting. Each group logged a different part of the section and collected data via StraboSpot. This was followed by a 2-part in-class exercise that included peer instruction and evaluation, the synthesis of group interpretations, and critical thinking. Student groups presented their observations/interpretations to their classmates in a short PowerPoint presentation, and then added their interpretation to a photomosaic of the outcrop. Because each group chose a different segment of the outcrop to log, the photomosaic soon filled with various interpretations. Using the interpreted photomosaic, students were asked if their interpretations were in agreement with those of their classmates, or if they wanted to change their interpretation based on their classmates’ results. Students then evaluated whether the synthesis of interpretations yielded a coherent depositional model. Students prepared to support their conclusions on the final exam. This was intended to assess student learning and to promote group critical thinking. At the final exam, students were given the published interpretation for the outcrop to compare with their interpretation. They were then asked if they agreed with the published interpretation of the outcrop, and to support their conclusions. While we feel this was a positive learning experience for the students, a surprising outcome was that although the students reproduced the facies model for this depositional setting in the first part of the final exam, none of the student groups used the facies model to interpret their depositional setting. Instead, students tried to construct their own model based on their field observations. This suggests that emphasis on applying models to geologic settings is just as important as teaching the specific depositional models.