Bringing Great Britain's Classic Geological Sites into the Classroom

Abstract

Students profit greatly from seeing geology in the field. Unfortunately, there are innumerable reasons why it is difficult to use the field as a training area. The problem may simply be geographic - not everyone lives next to the Alps or Hawaiian volcanoes - or may center on such mundane issues as scheduling and budgets. One way to “bring the mountain to Mohammed” is for teachers to participate in field excursions and then transmit the fruits of their learning in the classroom. In the summer of 1991, the National Association of Geology Teachers and the Geological Society of America co-sponsored the sort of field trip that was well suited to improving geoscience education by introducing teachers to an exceptional field experience. “GeoVenture ′91: Great Britain's Classic Geologic Sites” was a three-week-long trip, covering some 3,500 miles, around the perimeter of England, Wales, and Scotland. As the title suggests, a prime focus of the trip was to introduce participants to such classic areas as the chalk ...