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China Field Course, Summer 2012: During the summer of 2012, Dr. Jack Livingston and Dr. Jialing Wang traveled with 9 students on a two-week field course in China. The first stop was Shanghai, the biggest city in China, where the group visited an ancient water town, Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai History Museum, and Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Then the group traveled to Nanjing in a van, during which the group stopped at Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology in Changzhou and Nanjing University to communicate with local college students and professors (Nanjing University is Dr. Jialing Wang’s alma mater.) Followed by the two college visits was an overnight rail trip to Xi’an, one of the oldest cities in China. At Xi’an, the group visited Terracotta Warriors and enjoyed bicycling and walking on the Ancient City Wall. Another sleeper train took the group to the capital city of China, Beijing, where the group explored Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and finally climbed the Great Wall and became Hao Han (heros)! This field course provided students a good opportunity to be exposed to a different culture. Before the trip, each student was assigned a research topic related to China and presented research findings based on information collected from books, journals, magazines, newspaper, or the Internet. After the completion of the trip, students finished individual research paper reflecting their travel experiences in China.
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Summer, 2012, St Lawrence Valley and Newfoundland: Dr. Patrick Burkhart, Dr. Kolson Schlosser, and Dr. James Hathaway led eighteen students to Newfoundland via the St Lawrence Valley for “Field Investigations in the Geosciences” in August. They were assisted by Thomas “Hoss” Quinn, a graduate of the department who attended an earlier departmental field course to Newfoundland. Dr Burkhart has led or helped lead 20 field excursions in the department. Toronto was the first stop, followed by visits the next few days to Ottawa and the National Gallery of Canada, Montreal, and Quebec City with its magnificent Montmorency Falls. Traveling in three vans and a pickup truck, the group camped 16 of the 17 nights and spent a night on the ferry that sails from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Argentia, Newfoundland. At Memorial University in St John’s the group received orientation to the island’s complex geology and geography. An evening on a cod fishing boat and in the fishing village of Petty Harbour was a highlight in a trip that had many. On the other side of the island, faculty and students explored Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose exposed geology provides great insight into the process of continental drift. At this park, students enjoyed kayaking in one of the park’s impressive fjords. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site on the itinerary was L’Anse aux Meadows, where Norse settlers arrived around the year 1000. After taking a shorter ferry back to Nova Scotia, the group traveled through New Brunswick with a stop in St John en route to Bar Harbor, Maine’s old town. On the drive back to Slippery Rock the students had time to reflect on seeing and learning a lot of cool stuff.
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Spring Break 2012: Dr. Kolson Schlosser and nine SRU students went to Little Rock, AR to work with Herfer International to help educate hungry people how to produce food. The purpose was to engage in service learning on the ranch, where the group helped plant crops, did agroforestry projects, helped tend to the livestock, etc. The group also participated in workshops about global hunger and sustainability issues, as well as team building exercises. This included one night in Heifer International’s “global village”, meant to loosely simulate living conditions in the developing world. All the pictures taken at night are at this ‘global village.’
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Greater Yellowstone Field Course, Summer 2011: During the summer of 2011 Dr. Tamra Schiappa and Dr. Langdon Smith traveled with 17 students on a two-week field course through several western states. We left Slippery Rock University in three vans, and camped in tents during 13 of the 14 nights of the trip. Our ultimate destination was the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, but there were many stops along the way. We explored the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota, the Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse memorials, and Devils Tower in Wyoming. Dr. Schiappa taught the geology of the regions where we traveled, while Dr. Smith lectured about conservation and resource management issues. One of the highlights of the course was a field exercise with a National Park Service wolf biologist in Yellowstone. He let our students assist him with the documentation of a recent wolf kill, and then helped us locate and watch a wolf feeding on a kill in the Lamar Valley. Another major highlight for the group was experiencing the geology of the Bighorn Mountains while driving through the pass. The beautifully exposed rocks provided the students with a unique opportunity to view the overturned early Paleozoic strata and stand on the Paleozoic/Mesozoic era boundary. Students completed individual research projects during the trip and presented their findings to their peers while traveling.
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Annual Department Field Trip, West Virginia, Fall 2007:Fourteen SRU students and two faculty, Dr. Patrick Burkhart and Dr. Charles Shultz (professor emeritus) attended the department’s annual field trip to West Virginia. The destination is each-central West Virginia: Mouth of Seneca, Spruce Knob, and the Greenbanks Radio Astronomy Observatory. The focus of the trip was physiographic comparisons between the Monongahela Plateau and the Valley and Ridge. The trip was organized by Dr. Patrick Burkhart.
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Pittsburgh Geological Society Tools of the Trade, Spring 2007