Campus Field Exercises for Introductory Geoscience Courses

Abstract

Field trips are essential for learning geoscience, but can be logistically challenging for introductory-level courses with large enrollments. Transporting large numbers of undergraduate students to roadway or stream bank exposures can be time consuming, expensive, and unsafe. To address this problem, the author designed three campus-based field exercises for an introductory geoscience course. Students collected and analyzed data from campus features to learn about rock weathering, retaining wall stability, and stream flow. They preferred outdoor campus exercises over indoor exercises, because they were more realistic, interesting, and interactive. The outdoor exercises utilized features common to many college campuses and thus could easily be implemented elsewhere. While the campus exercises do not replace a need for conventional road trips in upper-level courses, they are an effective way to introduce fieldwork in large introductory-level courses.