An Integrated Final Examination for Laboratories in Introductory Geology

Abstract

A huge geologic map is drawn on the floor of the laboratory or on a suitable surface outdoors. Specimens of rocks, minerals, and fossils representative of the geologic formations depicted are placed between contacts. Students, walking on the field area, “do” the geology by reproducing the outcrop pattern at an appropriate scale and labeling their maps according to rock, mineral, and fossil identifications. Geologic sections are then prepared from the completed map and a geologic history (in terse, outline form) is given. The interdependence of all phases of laboratory work is shown very realistically in this way.