STORYMAPS AND GIS IN A GEOLOGY FIELD COURSE: ENGAGING TODAY'S BUDDING YOUNG GEOLOGISTS

During the summer term, an introductory Physical Geology course was conducted as a field-based course over three weeks in Colorado. The course substitutes in the curriculum for the classroom-based Physical Geology course, but the material covered in the field-based version of the course is much richer and engaging. Students of the field course often provide course-end feedback that seeing real examples of geology concepts helps them understand the materials in the textbook better and they wish they could share their experiences with their peers. In the summer of 2022, we collected video, photographs, 360-degree geo-located panorama photographs, and field notes from the sixteen students and three faculty in the course. That content was curated to create a StoryMap in ArcGIS that can be used to augment lesson materials in the classroom-based version of the course. Having the content curated and tied to specific lesson outcomes allows future faculty to selectively apply the locations and topics as they desire, while also affording the opportunity for students to engage in field-based learning if they are not able to be in the field due to physical or financial constraints. We will highlight a range of benefits and challenges to translating field trips into StoryMaps for classroom application, and demonstrate how a classroom-based student will engage with the material for learning introductory level Physical Geology. Topics cover the age of the Earth, Continental Evolution, Historical Geology of Colorado, Karst Topography, Glacial Geomorphology, Groundwater and Streams, Eolian Processes, and Mining and Petroleum Geology.