Examples of Innovative Teaching Methods

• Tour of the Le Roi Gold Mine at Rossland:  Some of the mapping exercises for field school are near the town of Rossland, B.C., which has a rich history of mining and mineral exploration. I have taken my GLGY 337 class on a tour of the Le Roi mine several times, which was a working operation in the 1920s and is inspected yearly for safety. The students had the opportunity to go underground and experience the 3-D mine geology. In addition, the geology building onsite has an extensive collection of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks from all over the world.

• Tour of the Teck Pb-Zn Smelter:  This smelter, located at Trail, BC, is the largest lead-zinc smelter in the world. This tour offers students a chance to observe active electrochemical plating of zinc onto 200-lb slabs, and the production process that starts with raw ore and ends with nearly pure zinc. The tour, which is led by retired employees from Teck Corp., provides a rare opportunity for students to see the inner workings of an active smelter.

• Tour of the Sullivan Pb-Zn Mine: This mine is no longer in operation, but was once one of the largest Pb-Zn mines in the world. It is located at Kimberley, B.C., and tours are provided into the underground tunnels by retired mine geologists. Students had the opportunity to see ore samples from the deposit, speak to the geologists, see the mining equipment, and see the mine safety room inside the underground tunnels.

• Group Camping at Bow Valley:  I have camped with the GLGY 337 students several times at the Bow Valley Campground in the Front Ranges of the Rockies. Camping provides many benefits, including: experiential learning about camp life, awareness of wildlife safety in camp, and much less travel time compared to daily road trips from Calgary. Most importantly, group camping simulates conditions that are reflective of true field geology, and promotes an active and collaborative learning environment.

• Stratigraphic Section at East Coulee:  As a result of poor weather one year in the Front Ranges, I decided to head east to East Coulee in the Red Deer River Valley, south of Drumheller, and measure a new stratigraphic section that hadn’t previously been used for GLGY 337. The students enjoyed making measurements and observations on the marine to non-marine transition.

• Stereonet in Regional Mapping: The Stereonet is used in geology to visualize the strike and dip of beds, as well as the trend and plunge of lines such as mineral lineations. In our project of mapping a syncline-anticline fold pair in Grotto Canyon near Exshaw, AB, I encouraged the students to plot their data on a Stereonet in order to help them visualize the orientation of the fold in 3-D space.

• Sandstone Outcrop at Symons Valley: The first day of GLGY 337 usually involves practice using a compass, measuring rock orientations, and making observations either on campus or at a locality within Calgary. I wanted to take the class off campus, so I scouted out an area of sandstone outcrop near Symons Valley, and contacted the landowner to get permission. The students enjoyed being about to get out on the rocks the first day of field school.

• Course Content and Videoclips: I enhanced the content of this course by adding a number of short educational videoclips of natural disasters, mitigation methods for disasters, and disaster response strategies. In my experience, seeing Earth phenomena in video form is much more impactful than reading about it. Examples of Earth phenomena captured on video include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, volcanic mudflows and ash deposits, tsunamis, lightning, hurricanes and tornados. Videos on preparedness for earthquakes and floods were also included, as well as videos from scientific agencies such as the Meteorological office of the Government of Canada.

• Term Paper and Self-Reflection: I introduced the component of a term paper in this course, on a topic of the students’ choice in the topic area of natural disasters. I found that many of the students chose a topic that they had a personal connection to, and several had lived through well-known natural disasters. The term paper encouraged them to conduct inquiry into the scientific literature on their topic, and they appreciated being able to understand more about the reasons why various Earth phenomena occur and how future disasters can be mitigated.

• Group Video Project:  In order to foster creativity and inquiry-based learning in this course, I assigned a group video project as part of the assessment. The students were grouped into teams of four, and chose a topic in igneous petrology (from a list provided by me). They then needed to make a 4 to 5-minute video on their topic and upload it to a video-sharing website. We watched all the videos in class, and the material was testable for the final exam. This project also had the components of a team contract to start the project, and peer assessments at the end of the project.

• Day Trips/Mini-Assignments at Death Valley:  This GLGY 435 course involved mapping faulted volcanic rocks located on the southeastern border of Death Valley, CA. I planned and organized the entire field school, with input and advice from previous instructors. The students conducted independent research prior to our trip in order to gain background knowledge about the rocks in the area. In addition to our mapping project, I took the class on several day trips into Death Valley to investigate and observe geological phenomena such as: salt flats, normal faulting, phreatomagmatic craters, sand dunes, and weathering patterns. For each stop, I assigned questions for the class to discuss as a group. We also took a side trip to the Hoover Dam, which is built into faulted volcanic rocks in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, and discussed the geo-engineering aspects of this project.

• New Stratigraphic Section at the Crowsnest Pass, AB: I taught GLGY 435 in British Columbia/Alberta and I introduced a new exercise that involved measuring the thickness of beds in the Crowsnest Formation, which is interpreted as a series of volcanic debris flows and breccias. The students measured several hundred metres of the formation, described the different rock units in detail, and calculated the true thickness of the formation using field techniques.