CREATING BETTER FIELD GEOLOGISTS BY BRINGING DIGITAL TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY INTO THE CLASSROOM: OBSERVATIONS AND STUDENT FEEDBACK

Over the past decade the use of technology in the average geoscience classroom has increased, however, much of the emphasis has been put on the potential advantages these technologies provide to those unable to experience traditional field geology while there has been limited assessment in how these are, or are not, improving the skills of the students in the field. This study presents two different applications of technology in geology classes, aimed at students in upper level and graduate courses. In the first exercise students are expected to have a basic understanding of GIS concepts and basic tools needed to build a mapping project within the QGIS and Qfield ecosystems, although the general workflow is explained during the exercise. The goal of this exercise is to have students prepare GIS projects to conduct field work, in this case they are first mapping a nearby creek before conducting a longer, multi-day mapping project in the Ouachita Mountains. In the creek mapping activity, the students are tasked with creating all their own map layers after discussing the mapping goals. After this exercise, the students and instructor discuss the issues they ran into, what layers they wish they included, etc. In the second mapping project, in the Ouachita Mountains, they use the discussion to guide them and think more directly on the goals of their mapping are and what data they will need to collect; all of which informs the layers they create. After completing this exercise, students reported an increased understanding in preparing for field data collection. The second exercise in this study consists of fold analyses using VOMs from Death Valley and the Ouachita Mountains and is aimed at an upper-level structural geology course. Throughout the second exercise the students plot and interpret stereonets of the folds and use the VOMs to gain a better spatial understanding of fold geometry. In the case of the Ouachita data, the students make predictions of what the structures tell them about the area and later combine these initial hypotheses with a multi-day mapping project. Through this exercise students reported a better understanding of the 3D nature of geologic structures and how they correlate with map patterns. Taken together, these exercises indicate that the introduction of digital tools and datasets into the classroom improves their boots-on-the-ground ability as field geologists.