2007 GSA Biggs Award

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2008 by Elkins, Joe

I have many people to thank who have been a source of help and encouragement and inspiration, but most of all I thank my wife Nikki and I share this award with her. Together, we have taken notes written on napkins and turned them into exciting experiences for students, a research program, and a mode of production. Besides being the real reason that Geojourney's itinerary becomes a reality each year, she also has the unique perspective of having been a student on the University of Georgia Interdisciplinary Field Program before I was ever involved (yes, she has even more experience with this than I do) and she has given me critical feedback on what it is like to be a student on this kind of program. I think Nikki's role in our efforts were best summed up by our camp cook Kevin Yates who described our professional interactions like this, "Joe throws out a barrage of ideas on mental post-it notes: some good, some ridiculous, some inspiring, some unthinkable. Nikki sifts through that barrage of ideas, deflects the ones that are unmanageable and identifies the ones that just might work." I accept this award and acknowledge Nikki for being the other half of this and thank her for giving me the most important thing she can: her time. It has been a lot of fun hasn't it?

I also thank Chris Watson who was the reason why Nikki and I ever got this far with any of our plans. Chris was the program coordinator for the University of Georgia Interdisciplinary Field Program in 1998 and it was fus interest in environmental issues and the role of human culture in shaping the modern landscape that opened my eyes to how much of what we were seeing in the field could be intertwined with geology to go beyond introductory-level course work. Although he has not been out in the field with us since 1999, Chris has consistently sent us mail while out in the field and his letters have always contained some article or text that has furthered the academic conversation he with us started ten years ago. Geojourney's interdisciplinary curriculum still bares his intellectual fingerprints.

I also thank Jim Whitney, Dave Wenner, and Paul Schroeder of the University of Georgia who have served as mentors to me. Their efforts as the faculty instructors on the UGA-IFP and on Geojourney demonstrated how to teach and how to conduct yourself in a professional manner while living with your students in a field context. The time and energy they have put into experimenting with field-based pedagogy- to figure out what works and what doesn't- was an inspiration to me. They also instilled in me the importance of managing risk in the field as well as setting reasonable goals for the staff and students; much of the itinerary and logistics that comprise Geojourney were worked out by these men over the past 20 years.

The unique living environment and learning community that results from living on the road, traveling the country, and camping out are not my work alone. In that environment no one could be solely responsible for all the learning that occurs in all those environments, at all hours of the day, in nearly infinite contexts. The experiences that students have on Geojourney are as much the result of the efforts of the teaching assistants, field instructors, and support staff as they are the result of my work. The personal sacrifices they make are incredible and to some, not worth the hard days, continual exposure to the elements, and very long drives. When we were first discussing Geojourney, my department chair at BGSU, Charlie Onasch, asked why in the world anyone would want to spend 24 hours a day for nine weeks living on the road with college freshman. My first thoughts were the words of southern writer Joel Harris, famous for his "Uncle Remus tales". In one of the most famous tales, Harris' main character and proverbial trickster, Br'er Rabbit had been caught by his adversary Br'er Fox. In an attempt to outwit the fox who was pondering the rabbit's fate, the rabbit cunningly suggests, "do whatever you like to me, but please don't throw me in the briar patch" which prompts the fox to do exactly that. As rabbits are at home in thickets, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes into his element. For the staff on Geojourney, we are like Br'er Rabbit and prefer the 'briar patch' of our existence on the road despite its thorns, both literal and figurative. Many thanks to the staff members on Geojourney who have been 'drinking the kool-aid1 with me over the past four years.

Most of all, I have had the incredible good fortune to have shared field experiences and exchanged ideas with the most exciting people I know- the students who have gone on Geojourney. Our exchanges and interactions have changed our lives in ways that cannot be accounted for in academic journals, professional meetings, or in the results of assessment instruments. Teaching in the field has afforded me the chance to get to know my students personally by forming our relationships in contexts other than the classroom. When geologists are asked about their most significant learning experiences, many are quick to say something about field trips. I know that was certainly the case with me. My students have expressed the same feelings and together, as we have traveled across the country, we have discovered much more than the secrets of our planet, we have discovered ourselves, which has in turn allowed me rediscover geology each field season, through their experiences. Teaching in the field is a powerful experience and I encourage you all to try it. Think of the places that inspire you as geologists and then take your students there: it will likely have the same effect on them as it did on you.