Incorporating A Stronger Field Component in Your Curriculum

Yvette Kuiper and Geoff Feiss

What are some examples of departmental efforts in this area?

• Make it a requirement: incorporate course based field trips/exercises and a field course
• General public field trips
• Field trips for recruiting students
• Field trip as part of a freshman seminar (recruiting)
• Take your dean/provost or other administrators in the field
• Go to NEIGC and local field based conferences

What are benefits and positive outcomes?

• Community/team building
• Lower barrier between students and faculty
• Recruiting
• No better way to learn geosciences than in the field
• Learn to argue on the outcrop (think critically)
• Eye-opening experience: learn to travel, camp, etc.
• Learn to make primary observations and base interpretations on them.
• Learn how to generate qualitative and quantitative data with a compass, hammer and handlens.
• Students learn how to formulate working hypotheses and test them.

What are challenges and barriers?

• time for faculty; don't get credit for the time commitments
• time for students; limiting factor, athletes, other commitments
• facilities (vehicles, camping gear, etc)
• money
• logistics
• liability

What are some ideas for making this work better?

• charge students a fee
• make logictics part of the trip; make it fun, get students to cook, get a new tire etc.
• On student field trips make student volunteer groups to help before, during, or after the trip
• get staff or students or geoclub to do logistics
• don't go to all new places each year
• pair up with other universities
• join consortia
• Have a screensaver with field pictures run in lower level/non-majors classes.
• Have a display case with field pictures (also good for recruitment)
• Community-building games; e.g. give identities to vans (community building effort)

What resources regarding this topic would you want to see on the website?

• pdfs of field guides
• field exercises
• maps