Campus Landscaping By Constructing Mock Geologic Outcrops

Journal of Geoscience Education, Sep 2006 by Matty, David J

IMPACT ON STUDENT LEARNING

For students in introductory courses, the CGA has so far provided several very positive effects. First, it gets students out of the classroom and into an active learning environment. Second, it challenges them to make observations and interpretations and, through group exercises, it further challenges them to defend their observations and interpretations with their peers. Finally, it provides them with a representational experience that allows them to better visualize and understand features that result from various geological processes. Since completing the CGA and instituting even simple exercises related to it, an improvement in student performance has been noted by various instructors in certain topical areas (structural geology, relative time, etc.). We have not yet completed formal quantitative assessment of CGA-related student learning in our introductory sections, but can report that instructors who utilze the CGA recognize improvement in students ability to correctly identify rocks, to visualize and thus better identify and explain structural features and relationships, to better understand and explain unconformable relationships, and to better understand and explain sequences of events.

The value to majors, minors, and students in upper division courses is also significant. Benison (2005) reports that students in her Earth History course felt that their field experiences with the CGA (her "CMULand") allowed them to better understand the relevance of interpretations applied to the process of relative dating. Likewise, a written survey or students enrolled in the Introduction to Geologic Investigations course elicited overwhelmingly positive comments related to the experience of mapping the CGA; a representative selection of student comments appears in Table 1. Almost universally, these comments indicate students felt that their experiences with the mock outcrops of the CGA enabled them to attack real field problems in complex geologic terranes. Likewise, instructor assessment (Table 1) indicates that exposure to the mock outcrops has increased student performance in solving real field problems. Summarily, we view the CGA to be an extremely viable teaching and learning tool that has the potential to be adapted to other institutions.

BUILDING YOUR OWN CAMPUS GEOLOGICAL AREA

In retrospect, our ability to construct the CGA was facilitated by the dedication and work of several faculty members over a span of decades. The lessons we have learned indicate that anyone wishing to construct a similar "geological area" need only have the desire, energy, time, and persistence to do it. For those interested in attempting to use more of their campus as an educational tool, the following suggestions are offered by way of our experience:

1) Construct a vision or a plan of what you wish to do on your campus. You may wish to start with a plan or vision based on a series of small improvements to reach your ultimate goal.

2) Find out what your local or regional geologic resources (sand and gravel operations, quarries, etc.) are, and determine how to work them into your vision/plan. Modify your vision or plan if necessary.