Field trips to engage students in science

Registration Deadline: Monday, May 5, 2019

This event has already occurred.

Saturday, June 1, 2019
Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C.

This field workshop is for all science instructors, at the high school, two-year-college, and four-year college levels. This workshop is free to participants thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation, but registration is required.

The field workshop will require about 3 miles of walking on urban streets, sidewalks and bikepaths, as well as forest trails.

Field Workshop Description

Field trips, particularly those in urban landscapes, provide an excellent resource for students with limited experience in the outdoors. In exploring Rock Creek Park, faculty will be introduced to a new and exciting field trip they can take back to their campuses. Additionally, this field trip will provide a great jumping off point for inclusive teaching methods. The workshop will culminate with participants generating and sharing ideas for field trips and engaging talks to take back to individual campuses.

This workshop examines sites in Rock Creek Park and adjacent neighborhoods to examine outcrops from the Piedmont and Coastal Plain geological provinces, the unconformity that separates them, and recent reverse faults that offset the unconformity.

Learn more about DC's exciting rocks here! (link down)

Goals for field workshop

This is a field trip about field trips! We will use a walking tour of DC's geology to explore best practices for designing and conducting effective field trips in a college-level science course. Our goals are:

    1. Discuss field trip goals and planning process; pitfalls and promises
    2. Introduce and explore methods of inclusive field trip practices
    3. Establish best practices for reaching out to students who are underrepresented in the geosciences
    4. Explore the exemplary geology of the bedrock beneath the capital city of the United States

Field Workshop Agenda »

Field Workshop Conveners

  • Caitlin Chazen
  • Marla Morales
  • Callan Bentley

If you would like further information about the workshop, please contact cbentley@nvcc.edu

This workshop is part of the Supporting and Advancing Geoscience in Two-Year Colleges: Faculty as Change Agents project and is supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education through grants DUE 1525593, 1524605, 1524623, and 1524800.

Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.


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