APPALACHIAN GEO-STEM CAMP
tivities (Khanaposhtani et al., 2018; Vennix et al., 2018) and that leisure settings and activities can improve the adolescent learning experience (Hayden et al., 2011; Jeffers et al., 2004). Nugent et al. (2015) showed that youth interest, self-efficacy and expectations about career were significant predictors of STEM learning.
The Appalachian Geo-STEM Camp Experience
With these concepts of learning in mind, the inaugural Appalachian Geo-STEM Camp (AGC) was held 17-21 June 2018. The AGC is a partnership between West Virginia University (WVU), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey (WVGES). The AGC is designed to engage high school students in geoscience-oriented STEM activities through adventure-based outdoor recreation, with an implicit goal of creating interest in STEM-based careers. Objectives of the inaugural AGC were two-fold: 1) logistically, to develop and implement a camp schedule and program of STEM-oriented PBE activities to maximize enjoyment of the camp experience by participants, and 2) educationally, to instill an interest in earth and natural sciences by exposing participants to new geologic and ecologic experiences through STEM-oriented PBE instruction and activities. To assist with activity and content development, staff from the USGS presented the AGC concept to the AIPG Executive Committee in February 2018.
AGC based its operations at the WVU Natural Resources
Center (NRC), located northeast of Morgantown, West Virginia. The NRC is a modern nature center located within the 7,500-acre WVU Research Forest. The setting includes yurts for student lodging, nature center-type classrooms, and an entire challenge leadership course including high and low ropes courses, a canopy zip line, and other challenging leadership opportunities. The NRC is also near hiking and mountain bike trails at Coopers Rock State Park, whitewater rafting along the Cheat River, and natural caving experiences at Laurel Caverns Park (a commercial cave near Farmington, Pennsylvania).
The WVU NRC is situated on the Allegheny Plateau.
Bedrock geology is comprised of gently dipping sedimen- tary rocks that include the Mississippian Price Formation, Greenbrier Limestone, and Mauch Chunk Formation overlain by the Pennsylvanian Pottsville and Allegheny Formations and Conemaugh Group (Fig. 1). Rock outcrops at the WVU Natural Resources Center and at nearby Coopers Rock State Park are mostly in the 60 foot- or 18.2 m-thick Homewood Sandstone Member of the Lower Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation (McColloch and McColloch, 2004), which consists of prominent meter-thick beds of cross-bedded conglomeratic sandstone.
With emphasis on these regional sedimentary rocks, class-
room instruction was followed by outdoor activities, which were used to introduce basic geologic concepts of mineral and rock identification and classification, geologic mapping, geo- logic hazards, and geomorphology (Figs. 2A-B). For example, a two-hour hands-on lesson of basic mineral and rock identifi- cation at the WVU NRC was followed by a short hike to Rock City in Coopers Rock State Park to observe cross-bedding and discuss Laws of Original Horizontality and Superposition in the Homewood Sandstone Member. A recycled plastic soda bottle filled with water, gravel, sand and clay was used to dem- onstrate both graded bedding and cross-bedding, which are both well preserved in the conglomeratic sandstone outcrops. Another short hike to Coopers Rock Scenic Viewpoint allowed for a lively discussion of the geologic time required to carve
28 TPG •
Apr.May.Jun 2019
Figure 1: Regional geologic map in the vicinity of the WVU- USGS Appalachian Geo-STEM Camp at the WVU Natural Resources Center (NRC). Activities included hikes and mountain biking at the nearby Coopers Rock State Park (CRSP) and white-water rafting on the Cheat River. Map compiled from McColloch and McColloch (2004; 2015) and McColloch et al., (2016; 2017).
the 1500-foot- or 457-m-deep Cheat River canyon below the overlook. The exercise allowed campers to contemplate deep geologic time by comparing the age of the rocks (approximately 320 million years old for the Pottsville Formation) with the calculated time to carve the canyon (hundreds of thousands of years using an erosion rate of 1 mm/year, to several million years from published data – e.g., Springer et al., 1997).
Geologic mapping concepts, including contacts and folds,
were presented on the Cheat River rafting trip through the core of the Preston anticline (Fig. 1). Highlights of this activ- ity included discovering terrestrial plant imprints in the lower part of the Pottsville Formation and marine fossils of crinoids and rugose (horn) corals in the Greenbrier Limestone (Fig. 2C- D) as the trip progressed from younger to older rocks in the core of the anticline. Campers linked the preservation of these fossil assemblages to the cyclic fluctuation of sea level as the sedimentary host rocks were deposited through geologic time. The natural caving experience at Laurel Caverns Park in Farmington, Pennsylvania re-enforced the concept of lime- stone dissolution (Fig. 2E). Campers discussed dissolution along lithologic contacts and regional joints that form the cave system, but because the cave is formed in calcareous sandstone of the Mauch Chunk Formation (Horton et al., 2017), cave formations like stalagmites and stalactites are few.
The camp also emphasized the use of modern digital map-
ping technologies in geologic and natural resources research. Campers were introduced to StraboSpot, a geologic data management system designed to help users collect, store, and share their geologic data (Tikoff et al., 2018). The campers
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