2YC Students in the Field

This page presents perspectives on and resources for engaging 2YC students in field experiences - opportunities, challenges, benefits. Essays from 2YC faculty showcase different examples of using fieldwork in 2YC courses while teaching activities demonstrate particular things that have been effective in this context. These materials have been developed by two-year college faculty in a number of settings for several different projects.

On the Cutting Edge has gathered extensive information on Teaching in the Field across the curriculum.


2YC-Field Teaching Activities

(Browse all Teaching Activities)

How to be a field geologist: an in-class exercise to introduce students to basic outcrop analysis
Becca Walker, Mt San Antonio College
This in-class exercise is designed to give students practice analyzing outcrops before they go on a field trip. First, students watch a short video tutorial on analyzing an outcrop. Then, they are given a color ...

Introduction to the Black Canyon City Landslide
Kaatje Kraft, Mesa Community College
On this one day field trip, students will be exposed to some general introductory field methods by examining an active landslide. They will examine the relative ages of the units involved as well as identify the types of materials involved (bentonite, basalt, colluvium and alluvium). They will make an assessment as to what type of motion is occurring as well as a prediction for what types of hazards this may pose to the surrounding community.

Beach Profiling, Observing and Documenting a Changing Environment, Point Lookout, NY
JoAnn Thissen, Nassau Community College
Using quantitative field methods to study shoreline erosion of a barrier beach. Students profile a beach and mechanically process sediment to document the changes along a shoreline.

Essays Browse all Essays

Hands-on Field Experience and Career Training in Oceanography
Allison Beauregard, Northwest Florida State College
One of the biggest challenges we face as community college instructors is preparing our students for careers; this is especially true in geoscience fields because people are generally not familiar with the discipline and they do not typically know anyone who is a geoscientist. Further, community colleges do not typically have research programs where students can gain exposure to geoscience research and/or field applications.

Quality, fieldwork, and blogging: my recipe for success
Callan Bentley, Northern Virginia Community College
There are a couple of items I'd like to touch on in this essay. Given the breadth of possible questions, I think it would be fair of me to mix and match a bit. So I intend to cover three things here, from general to specific: (1) quality, (2) field work, and (3) blogging.

Utilizing field experiences to create student interest in the geosciences
Kelly Bringhurst, Dixie State College of Utah
Dixie 
State
 College
 of
 Utah 
is 
located 
in
 Southern 
Utah 
at 
the 
border
 of 
the 
Colorado 
Plateau
 and
 the 
Basin
 and
 Range. We
 utilize 
this
 setting
 to
 give
 geologic 
field 
experiences
 to 
approximately 
600 
students
 a
 year.
 Field
 trips 
are 
required 
in 
all
 geology 
courses 
and 
range 
from 
local
 6‐hour
 trips 
to 
5‐day 
trips
 to
 the 
National
 Parks.

More Questions than Answers: Identifying Geoscience Career Opportunities
Cheryl Emerson Resnick, Illinois Central College
Illinois Central College is located along the Illinois River in Peoria, Illinois. We currently serve approximately 12,000 FTE students. Our three full-time faculty teach sections of introductory Earth Science, Physical Geology, and Meteorology. We also teach a two week field course each summer that takes students out west for hands-on learning. The faculty who teach physical geology require multiple field trips to local and regional locations, teaching students basic field observation techniques...

Growing Your Program in the Field
Suki Smaglik, Central Wyoming College
Its hard to believe that when I arrived at Central Wyoming College ten years ago that geology had not been taught here for almost twenty years, and then only occasionally. Here we sit in the place that many geology camps bring their students to learn their field skills. There were two courses on the books: Physical and Historical. The year prior, the University of Wyoming (our only public 4-year institution) removed the prerequisite for Historical and made them both entry-level courses. While we don't have to follow everything that UW does, it makes transfer easier for our students to transfer if we do follow much of it. As at most institutions, entry-level geoscience courses serve a mixed population of potential majors to general studies, and it is always challenging to make the information relevant to all. (But that is the topic of a different essay.)