DEVELOPMENT OF AN ALTERNATIVE INCLUSIVE FIELD CAMP

The Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Temple University in Philadelphia is developing an alternative field camp option for students, designed to provide a more inclusive option to fulfill the field camp requirement as well as meet the changing training needs for geoscience careers. Informed by a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis undertaken by the faculty and surveys of alumni and current students, we developed a module-based system that is more physically and financially accessible for students. One of the primary concerns expressed by alumni is the lack of practical experience for future careers. Many of our students go into the environmental consulting industry, and the largest growth in jobs for geoscientists are in environmental careers. A significant number of our undergraduates also go on to traditional graduate school programs. Because of this wide diversity in career paths, it has been critical to develop a field camp experience that provides choice for students. In the surveys, alumni largely felt that their field camp experiences were positive, but some did note inclusivity concerns. The primary concern for current students was cost (both the cost of field camp as well as the associated costs of travel, housing, equipment, lost wages), with nearly all students ranking this as a 3 - 5 on a Likert scale where 1 is not worried at all, and 5 is extremely worried. Travelling and accommodation concerns spanned all 5 rankings, and concerns over caretaker responsibilities ranked low in our current student body. Concerns over safety and discrimination had a bimodal distribution, with students either being very concerned or not concerned at all. We will present our full survey results and the model we have developed for this new field camp initiative that allows for choice to participate in traditional field camp programs or participate in in-house 1-3 credit modules, taking advantage of both east coast geology and options to learn about new technologies for environmental monitoring.