DIGITAL ROCK GARDEN FOR OUTREACH AND EDUCATION

The Discovery Rock Garden forms an outdoor classroom for geology students at all levels and an outreach educational experience for visitors to the Central Washington University (CWU) campus in Ellensburg, Washington. We have now launched a corresponding virtual tour of the Discovery Rock Garden that can be enjoyed by anyone anywhere via our website (https://www.geology.cwu.edu/discovery-rockgarden/). The boulder samples in the Rock Garden represent rock types found in Washington State and the Pacific Northwest, including the Columbia River Basalt Group, Chelan migmatites, petrified wood, and other regionally significant units. The selection is geared toward rocks that can be integrated into geology courses and that will entice visitors to learn more about the regional geology.

The temporary switch to online learning in 2020 presented an opportunity to develop the virtual tour of the Discovery Rock Garden. As part of the public outreach project assigned to each year’s new cohort of Geology Master’s Degree graduate students, each student adopted a boulder and wrote a description of the rock type, how it formed, where it came from, how old it is, and what it is used for. Photos and figures are accompanied by alt-text to enhance the accessibility of the virtual tour. Visitors to the online map tap on a rock hammer icon to access the information about each rock type. Exterior signs in the garden have a QR code that links to the interpretive map so that visitors can explore the Discovery Rock Garden tour on their phone while strolling the grounds.

The Rock Garden and online tour involves outreach and education at multiple levels. Graduate students research their samples and subsequently learn how to convey that technical information to a general audience. The rock samples are used in hands-on activities for introductory and majors courses. Perhaps most importantly, the rock samples and the online map are a means to connect with the general public. The concept of student-created online content explaining geological points of interest can be readily generalized to incorporate other features on a university campus or within a local region. Updates and expansions to the map and accompanying content provide virtually endless opportunities for fresh student contributions.