Virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway, Ireland
Jill Schneiderman, Vassar College
This activity is part of the Teaching with Online Field Experiences Reviewed Collection
Resources in the reviewed collection have received mostly Very Good scores in all five elements of review. The five elements included in the peer review process are
- Scientific accuracy
- Alignment of learning goals, activities, and assessments
- Pedagogic effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the activity description
For more information about the review process for this collection, see: https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/online_field/review_process.html
- First Publication: June 1, 2020
- Reviewed: August 14, 2020 -- Reviewed by the On the Virtual Field Activity Review Process
Summary
This online assignment takes the students on a virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway in northern Ireland. It begins with a brief video of the geological site, includes some questions relevant to the history of the neptunist and plutonist debate, and asks students to examine online petrographic images to investigate the composition of basalt and examine TAS diagrams so as to understand how fine-grained igneous rocks are classified.
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Audience
This exercise may be useful for instructors trying to teach a lab course online inasmuch as it provides the context and opportunity for studying the composition of basalts.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
Basic understanding of the main types of igneous rocks.
How the activity is situated in the course
This is a stand-alone exercise.
Activity Length
1 hour
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
My goal with this exercise is to replace as much as possible the need to use a petrographic microscope for the study of basalt.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
The higher order thinking skill required for this exercise is the synthesis of ideas related to the generation of extrusive igneous rocks.
Other skills goals for this activity
Description and Teaching Materials
Here is the exercise in a pdf format.
Virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway and formation of basalt (Acrobat (PDF) 66kB Mar29 20)
Technology needs
Access to the internet
Virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway, Ireland
-- Discussion
I'm very much interested in this activity to offer some real world to my petrology course this spring. However, the essence of the trip, and much of the information for students seems to be reliant on a video that is no longer available? When I navigate to the first link, I don't find a video, or much information?
Anyone else have this experience, or know if the video is available elsewhere?
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