Teaching Paleontology in the Field


Field experiences are a critical part of a geoscience student's education and have long been one of the foundations of geoscience education. Below, you will find links to presentations, posters, and teaching activities presented by participants at several workshops that speak to a variety of ways they have taught paleontology with and through field work.

Jump Down To: Field Guides and Databases


Paleontology in the Field

Field investigations of abandoned Negro cemeteries using GPR (PowerPoint 11.8MB Mar9 08)
Alison Henning, Rice University
Urban Students, Urban Issues 2008

Wooly Mammoth Excavation and Lab Work
Janis Treworgy, Principia College
Using Field Observations and Experiences to Teach Geoscience 2004

Mammoths and Mastodons(Teaching Idea)
Susan Conrad, Alison Smith, and Stephanie Peek
Teaching Climate Change: Lessons from the Past

Teaching About Time Using Timeline Activities in a Multi-Disciplinary Course on North American Environments for Non-Science Majors
Marguerite S.E. Forest, Florida Gulf Coast University
Teaching About Time

 

Field Guides and Databases

The NAGT Field Trip Collection contains more than 50 field trips and examples. The examples in this collection share information about the design of the trips and their important characteristics in addition to providing easy access to field guides. In addition, you can find information for teaching in the field in these other collections:

  • Field Trip Safety: This page in the Cutting Edge Teaching in the Field module presents guidance and example policies and forms for addressing safety concerns when taking geoscience students into the field to learn.
  • The Montana-Yellowstone Geologic Field Guide Database - The Montana-Yellowstone Geologic Field Guide Database is a pilot project for making the field guide literature more accessible and useful to geoscience educators, students, and researchers. While the database is not an exhaustive listing of every published field guide, nor does it provide direct links to the full text of each reference (except for a few unpublished field guides which are reproduced as pdf files), the database is a fully-searchable listing of 50 of the best references for exploring the geology of this fascinating region.
  • NAGT's Far West Section Publications
  • Field Guides - Illustrated field guides for sites near Bozeman and Big Sky, MT.
  • Geologic Guidebooks of North America Database: This database from AGI and the Geoscience Information Society contains bibliographic references and location for published field guides.
  • The University of Texas at Austin has compiled a substantial e-library of field trip guides (more info) on their Walter Geology Library website.