EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
The Best Geologists Still are the Ones Who have seen the Most Rocks
Aaron W. Johnson, MEM-2783
awj@aipg.org
On May 28, 1997, I packed up my sleeping bag, tent, ham-
mer, hand lens, field clothing, and a long list of required equip- ment, tossed everything into the trunk of a 1987 Thunderbird, and set out for Lander, Wyoming. My destination: the University of Missouri’s E. B. Branson Field Laboratory, situated about 7 miles up Sinks Canyon, just southwest of Lander. I was nervous about camp,. I was more than a little concerned that my aging T-Bird would not be up to the chal- lenge of a 2200-mile round trip, having already logged more than 210,000 miles on the odometer. I stopped to stay the night with a friend in Lincoln, Nebraska and pressed on, covering just over 700 miles the second day. I met up with some classmates who were also attending the Branson Lab, and we camped just up Sinks Canyon, trying to acclimate to the elevation and chatting nervously about what to expect at FIELD CAMP. We seemed to say it that way, in all caps, as if it were larger than life. For us, it was a critical component of our undergraduate education. Our institution required a ‘C or better’ in field camp to graduate. This was our biggest test. The moment that we would take all of our classroom learning and all of our other field experiences and learn to use them to understand the processes that govern how the physical Earth works.
As we sat around the campfire that first night, it became clear that we were all worried about field camp. We attended a ‘directional state university’ and field camp represented a step up in the world. A quick look at the list of attendees revealed students from Cornell, and the University of Wisconsin, from Stanford, and the University of Minnesota. All of us were worried that we might not have the same quality of education as those from larger schools. One of my classmates, I’ll call him Jim, was extremely worried. He wasn’t always the best student, and he often eked out the bare minimum to get by. He was, quite frankly, intimidated.
We camped for another night, then made our way to the Branson Lab on Saturday morning. We were the first group to arrive; we got settled in, picked out our accommodations in the bunk house, and began to explore the campus. About an hour later, the first van loaded with students arrived. After we watched them disembark, Jim walked over to me, a broad smile on his face. “I’m going to be just fine,” he said. When I asked what had changed his perspective, he replied, “There were 13 students on that van. There were also 13 brand-new rock hammers.” He was right. In fact, of the 42 students that attended our camp, about 2/3 had never used their hammers on an outcrop. Our undergraduate program offered a field trip with every course and required a field trip for most. We had our noses on the outcrop from day one. It gave us a tremendous advantage when we could walk up to an outcrop with confidence and immediately begin to describe what we saw. For others, Field Camp was their opportunity to learn
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to ‘approach an outcrop.’ That ability is a critical component of our profession.
Sadly, the COVID pandemic resulted in the cancelation of
nearly every field camp offered in the United States in the summer of 2020. I say ‘nearly’ because I have not been able to verify that every camp was closed, but I have also not been able to find a camp that remained open for in-person instruc- tion. Many camps went to a virtual model, offering virtual field trips in lieu of on-the-outcrop instruction. While these virtual programs have value, they simply are not the equivalent of field studies. To be fair, the universities offering field camps were in a no-win situation and did the very best they could under unprecedented circumstances.
As a former field camp instructor, I appreciate the difficult
choices that colleges and universities were forced to make. Still, I worry. I worry that some camps that often operate on the thinnest of margins will not reopen. I worry that schools, which already have begun to make field camp ‘optional’ will accelerate that move away from field-based geology educa- tion, to more virtual options. I worry that some schools will do the same with all field trips, moving completely away from field-based instruction. Times certainly change, and geology (and geologists) must change with them. However, there is no substitute for seeing rocks in the wild. As Alvis Lisenbee once told me, “the best geologists are the ones that have seen the most rocks.”
What can we do to ensure that seeing rocks in their natural habitat remains a core component of geoscience education? Speak up! Tell professors, students, administrators, tell every- one who will listen not only that field trips and field camps are important, but why. Tell them about the critical analytical and observational skills that are developed. Tell them about the importance of learning to take good field notes, and how those notes can sometimes become part of the legal record of a geological investigation. Tell them how these field experiences broaden the knowledge base of every geologist and how one critical field experience can expand the horizons not just of a geologist but of the team of which they are a part. Volunteer to assist with a field trip. Help universities get access to critical field sites when it is safe and appropriate to do so. Offer to develop and lead a field trip to sites that are critical to your specific field of geology. Show everyone, in word and deed, that hands-on, field-based learning opportunities remain a crucial component of geology education. Lend your voice and your experience to students and universities as they navigate these uncharted waters.
I wish you all the best this fall. Aaron
www.aipg.org
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