Perhaps the most under-appreciated aspect of using field trips is the need to prepare students for what they will see and do with their field trip experience. While some students (and teachers) view field trips as an outing away from the traditional classroom or reward for hard work, field trips actually provide powerful learning and growth opportunities if students are properly prepared to appreciate it. Modeling of such preparation is part of the approach used in Earth & Space Systems and occurs in two forms.
In the week prior to the Taylors Falls field trip, the pre-service teachers are asked to read a place based writing assignment that is used to prepare introductory geology students for their course work. In this assignment the students must describe a place they value and indicate how they believe if may have formed. The pre-service teachers receive an example of one student's response to this assignment focusing on the Taylors Falls field trip site. This shows the pre-service teachers what a novice to the area might see upon arrival and gives them a sense of base line information and student interest.
Modeling also occurs in the manner by which plate tectonic processes and characteristics of divergent plate boundaries, sedimentary depositional processes, glacial meltwater channels and stratigraphic principles are investigated in the weeks prior to the field trip. Slide shows, stratigraphic profiles and readings on the geology of the Rio Grande Rift in New Mexico and Lake Superior segment of the midcontinental rift of which Taylors Falls is a part give students an informed view of what they should expect to see, how it fits into the larger geologic picture and why I believe it is of importance to them.
During the classroom session before the field trip the class discusses the intro student's essay for understanding of the site and how it compares to what we expect to find based on our more extensive study.