Graduate students enrolled in “Problems in Environmental Geology” conducted a magnetic survey of a 3.3-acre open field and parking lot immediately south of Grace Baptist Church in Normal, Illinois. The site was previously a sand and gravel quarry, then an unregulated domestic landfill. The principle objective of the survey was to have the students gain experience in planning, conducting, and reporting environmental surveys. A second objective was to better delineate the extent of the buried wastes. The wastes had previously been found in a series of ten engineering borings, but their true lateral extent was unknown.The survey was conducted with a total-intensity, proton-precession magnetometer (Geometries Model 856). This instrument measures the intensity of the magnetic field in nanoTeslas at select locations. Analysis of the Fourier transform of a single, 264-foot-long, closely spaced (2 foot) reconnaissance profile was used to determine the maximum station spacing (10 feet) and line separation (20 feet) that would adequately define the field without aliasing the data. Pre- and post-survey quality-control measurements at a base station were used to verify that the instrument was operating correctly, that the instrument operators were magnetically “clean,” and that Earth’s ambient magnetic field was stable. The surveyed magnetic total intensity was displayed as both hand-drawn and computer-generated contour maps.The magnetic survey showed several areas of intense magnetic anomalies (−700 to +2700 nanoTeslas) and other areas having a smoother magnetic field (<20 nanoTeslas). The anomalies are assumed to occur over wastes containing refractory cinders and ferrous-metal objects, an interpretation that is consistent with the engineering borings. A magnetic model composed of six finite-length polygons and one sphere was constructed to verify the feasibility of this interpretation.Areas overlying buried wastes are prone to differential settling that can compromise building foundations, pipelines, or pavements. Future development of this site should consider the distribution of the wastes as indicated by the borings and the magnetic survey. Other concerns include rusty metal and broken glass on the surface and the possibility of hazardous chemicals that could contaminate local ground water.This deceptively simple exercise, with a standard geophysical technique, involved aspects of information theory, digital data processing, potential-field theory, and a technically sophisticated instrument. Understanding the magnetic field included consideration of electrical currents in Earth’s outer core, ionospheric currents induced by extraterrestrial particles, and the complex physics of material magnetization. Also involved were the usual problems of efficiently conducting an applied field survey. For our students, the survey was a challenging exercise that convincingly demonstrated the connection between real environmental problems and the seemingly esoteric material we had been studying in the classroom.