Comments on: Field-based Teaching in Northeastern Minnesota

By: kristin riker-coleman

kristin riker-coleman — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:03:49 +0000

I’m catching up in reading blog posts and was scrolling through google reader to look at the pictures and saw the first picture without reading the first paragraph. When I saw it I thought, “Hey that looks like Thompson Formation near here.” Low and behold it is.

I knew this workshop was going on (because one of the people running it is a dear friend), but had forgotten about it since she and I couldn’t connect due to my work schedule. My kids (age 5 and 8) would find it interesting that a bunch of people got into a van (or bus) to visit the rocks they regularly run about on.

By: Stephanie Jarvis

Stephanie Jarvis — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 02:48:53 +0000

At field camp we had cb radios…useful, but extremely annoying when we had to turn down the music Those are some sweet rocks!

By: David Kime '92

David Kime '92 — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:35:39 +0000

Wow, I’m jealous of a field trip to Pre-Cambrian locations…I would have loved to see some BIFs in the field!

I have so many good memories of field trips with Woo Geology, from Intro to Historical to Field Methods(Jr IS) to the COSEN field trip to Wyoming and Montana. Saving Marta’s Brunton from falling into the gross water is a good memory, as is Dr. Koucky navigating not by a road map, but by a glacial geology map.

By: Abdelrhman Selim

Abdelrhman Selim — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:21:49 +0000

Great discussion, Listing to student interpretation to an outcrop or to an area let you know their geological background, and how they thinking geologically.

By: Silver Fox

Silver Fox — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:42:38 +0000

Wonderful BIF!

By: Lockwood

Lockwood — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:11:23 +0000

I often start with some nebulous open-ended questions to get students started engaging with the outcrop, then use their responses to formulate more questions that will guide them to note important features and begin to interpret them. My overall goal is to get them to the point where they could walk up to a spot and make sense of it without guidance. Most of my undergrad trips were heavy on the point and explain type of stops- effectively outdoor lectures. I’m not going to leave a stop without being confident the students have a pretty good idea of what’s happening there, but first, that disorientation and confusion are important to experience, and second, often enough, with prompting, they CAN figure things out for themselves. They don’t even have a shot at that if I start by telling them what’s important to notice and how to interpret it. In my opinion, depriving students of the opportunity for that glow of success, the pleasure of making sense of it for themselves, verges on criminal.

Here’s a recent post I wrote on my use of questions in the field, which some students find somewhat distressing: http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2011/08/imperative-of-questions.html

By: Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:46:59 +0000

That Banded Iron Formation is to die for, Meagen! I didn’t know you spent so much time with sedimentary rocks on this trip. As for the useful list of ideas:

“… why not laminate poster-sized photomicrographs or phase diagrams to enhance the discussion?” What a great and simple thing to do. Students have such illustrations in their field guides, but they rarely seem to use them in the field. Holding laminated posters up to the outcrop itself would be very effective, especially if we draw on them.

“One person suggested recording podcasts that students could listen to in the vans between field trip stops.” I predict this will be as popular as our old system of lecturing between stops on walkie-talkies. I learned my lesson with a peek inside another van as I talked!

Thanks for a fun and productive post!