ENGAGING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN RESEARCH THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CLIMATE RECORD FOR A MISSISSIPPIAN SITE ON THE CRAWFISH RIVER, SOUTHEASTERN WISCONSIN

An upper-level undergraduate course focused on past environmental change was developed to provide students with firsthand research experiences. Since spring 2017, 40 students have been involved in the production of geophysical and geochemical data from a lake sediment core. The overall goal is to establish the climatic conditions during the settlement, occupation, and abandonment of a Mississippian site on the Crawfish River in southeastern Wisconsin. The site was occupied between ~1050-1200 CE, however it is not clear why it was abandoned with one suggestion being that climate change caused the out-migration. Sediment cores collected from nearby Mud Lake (~5 km from the site) are being used to develop a paleoclimate record to address this hypothesis. Student-generated data of organic and carbonate content, particle size analysis, and charcoal have been prepared using standard methods, and provide general information as to the climate of the region. Course assessment requires students to draft separate sections of a research paper during the semester for detailed feedback that they then merge into a final paper. Poster presentations of student findings occur at UWL’s Annual Celebration of Research and Creativity at the end of the semester. Benefits and challenges associated with this course-embedded research will be presented, as will the preliminary findings of the climate record.