abstract this paper describes an alternative to extended...
TRANSCRIPT
Extended Travel As An Introduction to Geography
Michael E. Lewis Professor
Jeffery C. Patton Professor
Department of Geography University of North Carolina Greensboro, NC 27412
ABSTRACT
This paper describes an alternative to capstone field courses in undergraduate curricula. Early opportunities for faculty guided exploration and discovery provide students with firsthand field experience and is an effective means of recruiting and retaining qualified geography majors. A wide ranging, rapid movement model is more effective for introducing students to the spatial character of geography than single destination capstone courses patterned after geology f ield camps.
KEY WORDS : field trips, undergraduate education, United States, Canada, geographic education.
Travel , exploration, and discovery are key elements of the training and maturation of geography students (Salter and Meserve, 1991). Theoretical models of learning support that notion, and empirical tests have demonstrated that excursions into the field not only stimulate natural curiosity about the workings of the geographical world, they also improve retention of concepts learned in the classroom and may increase subsequent comprehension of new material (Bain, 1987; MacKenzie and White, 1982; Gagne and White, 1978).
Because of the benefits of experience outside the classroom, capstone courses based at field research stations similar to those found in geology programs are found in many university geography programs. Such courses are placed at the culmination of an undergraduate curriculum with the objective of focused study and experience with data gathering and techniques of analyses used in field research at the graduate level. We accept the value of focused field study for upper level undergraduates, but we also find that offering opportunities for travel experience earlier in student's undergraduate studies is a means of recruiting and retaining new geographers.
In spite of the welcomed renewal of geographic education in the elementary and secondary schools, few students arrive at a university intending to major in geography. Like many geography fac-
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ulty before them, they discover what geography has to offer after taking an introductory course during their freshman or sophomore year. A chance to explore and discover the world of geography early in their undergraduate years serves as an effective hook to intellectually motivated students seeking a major with clear application to real world problems.
Beginning geographers especially need a chance to discover and experience a diversity of places beyond their home surroundings. We have had a few well traveled students on our field trips, but over the past 10 excursions in the United States and Canada less than 20 percent had previously traveled from North Carolina to west of the Mississippi River or north of the Mason-Dixon line. Some trips have included students who had never traveled beyond North Carolina's borders!
Even among students with a long list of places visited, many have not consciously learned to recognize and appreciate landscape components, transitions, and patterns, though most do have a natural curiosity about the look of the land. Business and vacation travel in an age of commercial airports and high speed highways has conditioned people to treat travel like an elevator ride, dominated by entry and exit within climate controlled, uniform surroundings. Learning to look at transitional changes, synthesize natural processes and human elements shaping the landscape, and applying those observations to questions concerning sustainable human interaction with the natural environment distinguish travel as learning from travel for recreational or business purposes.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
Four primary objectives have evolved over 10-summer field excursions :
• Students will use all of their physi cal senses to explore and discover natural landscapes
• Students w ill experience, or observe the results of a few unusual, or strikin'g features or events illustrating key principles and processes of physical geography.
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• Students will practice interpreting geographic scenes by giving oral presentations and written reports.
• Instructors will help students apply temporal and spatial earth science principles and events to human use of the natural environment.
BUDGET
Funding and budgeting are an important but not insurmountable obstacle to providing undergraduates with field experience. The fee for each participant on a trip lasting from 23 to 25 days has ranged from $600.00 to $800.00 plus tuition. In addition to transportation, food, and lodging, past trip fees have paid for river rafting on the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument, trial rides on horseback into Bryce Canyon, Utah, cave tours through Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, and boat charters on Lake Huron, Ontario. For most students the cost of the trip approaches what they would incur for room and board on campus during a Summer Term. The Department of Geography provides an additional incentive by allowing credits earned on the summer field trip to be applied to a major in Geography, thus reducing the time required to complete a B.A. degree.
Transportation is the most expensive line item in the budget, often consuming as much as 50 percent of the overhead. Many universities rent vans through motor pools, and commercial rental companies offer unlimited mileage at weekly or monthly rates. Lodging varies from 15 percent to 25 percent of budget depending on the mix of tent camping and nights at motels. The number of camping nights and motel nights varies with the selected route, but a ratio of four nights camping to one night in a motel is typical. Motels are most useful on long travel days when there is less time to prepare meals and set up tents.
Food expenses are kept to a minimum by buying in bulk and rotating camp cooking and clean-up assignments among students and faculty. We typically sample local fare two or three times during the trip as a break from camp cooking .
TRIP PREPARATION
Field trips are more successful when some classroom orientation and lectures are given before leaving. The class, consisting of about 25 students, begins by discussing geography's regional perspective, and its intellectual bridge between earth science and social science via the theme of human interaction with the natural environment. Nine hours of lecture time is spent reviewing basic concepts and introducing topics that will be covered during the field trip. One of three routes is chosen each year, each extending from 6,000 to 8,000 road miles across the United States and, on occasion, Canada (Figs. 1, 2, 3).
Principles of physical geography, natural resources and natural hazards are emphasized, and their application to environmental planning and land use in a diversity of places and regions (Tables 1, 2, 3). To meet that goal we rely on a rapid movement excursion model, usu-
ally staying not more than a day in one location. Exceptions are made at some of the larger National Parks, including Big Bend, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier, or Banff-Jasper, where the length of stay may be up to four days.
Three hours of preparation time are also used for reviewing cooking and clean-up assignments, checking over baggage and equipment, and a trial run at packing vans.
STUDENT FIELD ACTIVITIES
Student field activities are structured around a field logbook and daily journal. The logbook is a factual record of field observations and notes from faculty lectures and interpretive centers visited at stops along the route. The logbook provides students with study material for the final exam and references that may serve as a starting point for future research projects. The daily journal is a more personal record of impressions about the trip itself and provides an opportunity for
FIGURE 1. Route of the Southern Field Trip. Numbers refer to areas and topics listed in Table 1.
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o 2SO SOO
FIGURE 2. Route of the Central Field Trip. Numbers refer to areas and topics listed in Table 2.
reflective introspection and practice with expressive writing . Keeping up with journal entries and field notes creates a valuable written record and provides the discipline needed to maintain involvement and interest. In addition to keeping written records, each student serves as a geographic interpreter at one site by providing the group with an oral presentation, followed up with a written report.
Regular attention to writing about the changing landscape is often the key to recognizing that the trip is not simply a series of unrelated stops but a continuous unfolding of space. Serendipity is never ignored and unplanned stops are made when they meet the trip objectives. Weather events present common opportunities to exercise multiple senses. We have detoured to experience a passing cold front on the Great Plains, been delayed by a June snowstorm in the Northern Rockies, and forded flooded swampy roads in Louisiana. Hot weather provided a chance to observe distant
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forest fires set off by lightning. Firsthand experience with such things gives added meaning to planned lectures on climatic uncertainty, human responses to seasonal flooding, and the role of fire in vegetation dynamics.
Contemporary results of past geologic events are also topics of student and faculty talks. Volcanism and tectonism in the Valley of Fires, New Mexico, the overthrust belts of Glacier National Park, Montana, or the geyser basins of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, for example, are linked to geothermal energy and fossil fuel resources, agricultural use of volcanic soils, and human responses to geologic hazards. Raised beaches along the shores of the Great Lakes, or wooded moraines in the Corn Belt provide opportunities to discuss the landscapes of continental glaciation.
Because of the fast pace and exploratory objectives of the trip, we rely on library research and secondary data sources as the basis of reports. Setting up expensive equipment for collecting
FIGURE 3. Route of the Northern Field Trip. Numbers refer to areas and topics listed in Table 3.
and analyzing field data are left for upper level capstone and graduate courses that provide the time for intensive study at a single site. Opening an intellectual door and stimulating curiosity by seeing things firsthand is the important point at this level. Many students identify the site where they made their presentation to the group as the place they found most interesting on post-trip course evaluations. Others find that seeing a place they had not known or considered interesting before the trip leads them to want to return for more study.
FACUL TV AND STUDENT INTERACTION
Student presentations are heavily supplemented by faculty comment. Formal lectures at planned stops alternate with running commentaries on landscape transitions while driving cross country. Small group discussions and less structured teaching takes place during day hikes, spare moments in camp, even while sitting in laundromats. In no
other educational setting do students have as ready an access to their instructors as on a field trip, and in few other settings do instructors have less control over the scope and nature of the discussions.
Our emphasis on physical and natural resource geography in different regions of North America encourages questions in the form of "What is that and why is it there?" Such questions strike at the heart of what makes travel rewarding, important, and difficult. Students are sometimes chagrinned to find that we cannot always give an immediate and definitive answer to every question. Among the better students, having the instructor say "I'm not sure, what do you think?" marks a shift from thinking of faculty as dispensers of information to facilitators of learning. They begin to recognize the need for specialization in research and learn that much remains to be discovered and explained.
Team teaching allows for a shared workload, providing a number of peda-
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TABLE 1 Selected Areas Visited and Sample Presentation Topics
on the Southern Route
AREA
1. Southern Piedmont 2. Gulf of Mexico coast
3. Mississippi River Delta
4. Chihuahuan Desert Big Bend of the Rio Grande
5. Carlsbad Caverns 6. Valley of Fires State Park
7. Navajo Reservation
8. The Grand Staircase Grand Canyon-Zion-Bryce National Parks
9. Central Rocky Mountains
10. Central Great Plains, Wheat and Range Region
11 . Upper Mississippi River Valley
12. Ohio River Valley
SAMPLE TOPICS
Soil erosion and vegetation succession Hurricanes Coastal erosion and barrier islands Delta land use -Human attempts to control the Mississippi River Oil and gas resources Vegetative adaptations to xeric environments Exotic rivers Desert landforms Limestone cave and cavern development Volcanic rift zones Topography of recent lava flows Eroded volcan ic landscapes (Shiprock) Differential erosion and mass wasting (Monument Valley) Entrenched river meanders (San Juan River) Navajo land and resource use The Colorado River Fluvial erosion Historical geology Vegetative transitions Continental drainage divide The Wilderness Act of 1964 Tourism and skiing as recreational resources National Forest Service land management policies Tall grass prairies (Flint Hills) Irrigation vs. dryland agriculture Floodplain development and land use River Navigation : past and present Coal mining and electrical energy Horse breeding (Bluegrass basin)
gogical and practical advantages. Much of the commentary takes place on the road, so it is critical that an instructor travels in each van. The perspectives and experiences of two instructors also provides a greater breadth of interpretation and supplements student presentations at planned stops. In more practical terms, two group leaders allows one person to keep the main group involved in the day's activities while the other deals with vehicle impromptu repairs, minor medical emergencies, or logistical problems that occur in spite of careful planning.
the trip. The exam combines selection type items (multiple choice, matching, true-false) with supply type short answer and longer essay items. Content is taken from the lectures and reports given by students and faculty during the trip.
REFLECTIONS ON OUTCOMES
Offering the travel course early in the geography program has provided students with a portfolio of personal experiences that improves their subsequent course work. Having been to a place or region acts as a catalyst for classroom learning and enriches the entire class when students share their field
A comprehensive written final examination is given on campus at the end of
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TABLE 2 Selected Areas Visited and Sample Presentation Topics
on the Central Route
AREA
1. Appalachian Piedmont & Blue Ridge Mountains
2. Ridge and Valley and the Cumberland Plateau
3. Lower Mississippi Valley
4. Ozark Highlands
5. Rolling Red Plains
6. Llano Estacado (Southern High Plains)
7. Capulin Nat'!. Monument & Northeast New Mexico
8. Great Sand Dunes Nat'l. Mon. & The San Luis Valley
9. San Juan Mountains
10. Colorado Plateau
11 . Colorado's Western Slope
12. Grand Teton and Yellowstone Nat'l. Parks
13. Yellowstone River Valley & The Powder River Basin
14. Devil's Tower, The Black Hills and the Badlands
15. The Central Great Plains
16. Kentucky and West Virginia
SAMPLE TOPICS
Mountain Belts and Tectonic Compression
Folded Sedimentary Structures and Drainage Patterns The TVA Experiment in Land Management Topography and Land Use Natural Hazards and Resources of Large Rivers The New Madrid Fault Floodplain Agriculture Emergence of Poultry Agriculture Recreational Use of Rivers The Dust Bowl Legacy Oil and Gas Formation and Extraction Groundwater Dependent Agriculture Stream Piracy Volcanic Eruptions and Tectonic Rifting Steppe Landscapes Aeolian features Water Rights and Western Land Development Alpine Glaciers and the Ice Ages Environmental Consequences of Hard Rock Mining Contemporary Native American Use of Natural
Resources Regional Uplift and Fluvial Processes The Grand Canyon "Oil Shale": A Potential Resource? Echo Canyon and Western Water Politics Multiple Purpose Public Land Use Human Pressures on Our National Parks National Park Service Forest Fire Policy The Great Caldera and Geothermal Features Ranching, Recreation and the Environment Upland vs. Riparian Land Use in Semi-arid Regions Igneous Plugs, Dikes, and Sills Differential Erosion and Stream Drainage Development Corn Belt Agriculture Formation of Loess Uplands and Till Plains Perception and Landscape Reality The Landscape of Coal Mined Land Reclamati.on
trip observations with their peers. Aridity and humidity, for example, are two concepts that may be difficult to grasp by students who have grown up in the eastern United States. But take them out of their air conditioned classroom and into the Chihuahuan desert of Big Bend National Park, Texas and the meaning of
aridity becomes clear. If that same group has sensed the amount of water vapor present in the air over the North Carolina piedmont in June, the distinction becomes a sensible as well as quantitative one.
Students who complete the travel course early in their undergraduate ex-
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TABLE 3 Selected Areas Visited and Sample Presentation Topics on the Northern
Route
AREA
1. Mohican State Park
2. Great Lakes
3. Canadian Shield
4. Forest-prairie transition
5. Canadian Rocky Mountains Jasper-Banff-Yoho-Kootenay
National Parks
6. Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
7. Upper Missouri River
8. Dakota Badlands Theodore Roosevelt National Park
9. Lake states cutover forest
10. Ontario's Lower Peninsula
11 . Finger Lakes district
12. Appalachian Valleys and Ridges
SAMPLE TOPICS
Continental glacial end moraines Township and Range Land surveys Midwest agricultural landscapes Continental glaciation and Great Lakes origins Industrial development and the Great Lakes (Sault
Locks) Continental glaciers and isostatic rebound (Lake
Superior's north shore) Silver mining (Sleeping Giant Provincial Park) Pulp and paper industry Lake-based tourism and recreation Vegetation ecotones (Riding Mountain National Park) Lacustrine glacial landscapes (Lake Agassiz) The Canadian breadbasket (Wheat Pool) "Living" (Holocene) Glaciers (Columbia Icefield) Historical origins of the national park idea International river management (Columbia River) Mass wasting as a natural hazard (Frank slide) Mountain building by tectonic compression Alpine glacio-fluvial landforms Wildlife habitat preservation (grizzly bear) Rangeland vs. cropland Debunking regional stereotypes about the Great Plains Large scale water projects : the damming of the
Missouri River Fluvial vs. glacial landform processes Fossil fuel resources (Williston basin) Nineteenth century logging vs. contemporary National Forest management in the Lakes states Past and present iron and copper mining Vacation home developments (Georgian Bay-Bruce
Peninsula) Niagara Fruit belt Headward erosion, knick points, and waterfalls (Niagara
Falls) Drumlins Origins of the Finger Lakes Geologic Structure and stream drainage development Historical significance of watergaps Fossil fuel resource development in Pennsylvania
perience also develop a sense of community among the department's majors. Over the past 10 years the most active members of our Chapter of Gamma Theta Upsilon have typically been summer trip veterans.
Summer travel is not only good for students but also for faculty. We have added to our understanding of the geography of North America and improved the quality of our on-campus teaching . Leading a successful trip does
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demand planning, organization, flexibil ity, and a healthy dose of patience, even after four nights in a wet sleeping bag! But despite occasional personal inconveniences, teaching a field centered course is professionally rewarding. Students and ourselves have learned to comprehend and appreciate geography in new ways, while we also come to know and understand each other a little better.
REFERENCES
Bain, I. 1987. Threat to Field Work. The Geographical Magazine, 64 :8.
Gagne, R. M. and White, R. T. 1978. Memory Structures and Learning Outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 48:187-222.
Mackenzie, A. A. and White, R. T. 1982. Fieldwork in geography and Long-term Memory Structures. American Educational Research Journal, 19: 623- 632.
Salter, C. l. and Meserve, P. 1991 . Life Lists and the Education of a Geographer. Professional Geographer, 43 : 520-525.
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