A Planning Workspace for Teaching in the Field Co-conveners
Greetings folks. This is a private workspace where we can collect our thoughts related to the Teaching in the Field workshop. Please use this as a type of "wiki" space to record your ideas about possible sessions, folks you might want to invite to present, suggested activities we might do at the workshop, references and other resources. I've made a start at a list, please feel free to add to these lists and create more of your own. --DM
Questions we might ask in a pre-workshop survey to get a "snapshot" of what's happening in field instruction today:
- How many hours of field instruction should a student experience in the course of a 4 year curriculum?
- In my field instruction I a) always, b) sometimes, c) never teach about
- Map interpretation
- Rock identification
- stereonets....
- My department offers field camps/field classes/field trips on (a) hydrogeology (b) geophysics (c) regional geology (d) mineralogy/petrology (e) coastal geology (f) field mapping (g) geomorphology (h) soils (i) paleontology (j) other...
- Diverse field settings are not always located within easy travel distances from campuses. For each type of class exercise that students complete in your department, indicate (1) How far you must travel to reach each of the field exercises? (a) 100 miles? (2) What is the duration of the time in the field for each exercise? (a) half day, (b) full day, (c) 2 days, (d) > 2 days
- As part of our department's field instruction, students received instruction in the use of: (a) Bruton compass, (b) topographic maps, (c) PDA's, (d) field computers, (e) total station, (f) other specialized equipment (describe in entry box provided).
- General department support for field instruction involves both philosophical support of the faculty and financial support. In general, how supportive are your department faculty members of field instruction? (a) very supportive, (b) supportive, (c) ambivalent, (d) unsupportive, (e) hostile. How willing is your department/adminstration to fund or supplement field instruction for students? (a) very supportive, (b) supportive, (c) ambivalent, (d) unsupportive, (e) stingy.
Topics that may be of universal interest to cover in plenary sessions.
We might consider whole group "round table" discussions to get a "sense of the community" that we can then summarize for posting on the web, or maybe even writing a "white paper".
- Funding; how do we provide sustainable funding for field experiences of all kinds? (Bob would be happy to lead this discussion and summarize)
- Are there innovative ways we could collaborate to maximize access to equipment and housing?
- Safety issues;
- Liability (Do we know any field geolgists with a law background?)
- Social aspects (e.g. gender issues, alcohol/drug policies, etc.).
- Essential field skills at which every geoscience professional needs to be proficient
- Dealing with diminished access to field areas (use of "release of claims" agreements).
Sessions we may want to schedule
- Using Google Earth to prepare for the field, in the field, analysis after the field
- (Steve would be very interested in organizing or chairing this session)
- International opportunities--pros and cons, how to arrange it
- Introductory field experiences--how to design, with what goals, what are reasonable expectations?
- How to describe expectations (e.g. for field notebooks, analysis) before work begins
- Using technology
- e.g. Joe Elins and use of IPODS
- Sketch mapping, note taking, annotated pictures
- Disciplinary examples
- Hydrology (Don Siegel or Laura Lautz from Syracuse would be useful leaders/participants for this + technology links)
- Paleontology
- Geophysics
- Field Methods classes--when and where in the curriculum?
- Field instruction in disciplinary "core" geology courses?
- Long term monitoring of field sites; repeated visits
- REU in the field--alternative or complement to field camp?
- What is the future of the (summer?) Field camp?
Resources to add to our list
Books, articles, URLs, that we can build into our collections now...
- Field Geophysics by John Milsom, Wiley, 3rd edition, 2005. Fits in your pocket, good selection of essential equations and descriptions, needs updating on some methods.