Profile Dave Mogk, Montana State University-Bozeman
Profile Darrell Henry, Louisiana State University

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Peer Reviewed Teaching Activities collection.

This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection

This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are

Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
Pedagogic Effectiveness
Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page

For more information about the peer review process itself, please see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.

This page first made public: Jul 28, 2008

Beartooth Highway Field Trip and Activities

Darrell Henry, Louisiana State University
Dave Mogk, Montana State University

Intended Audience: This field trip and related exercises was used for a Teaching Petrology in the 21st Century workshop, but may be applicable to undergraduate and graduate courses in petrology.

Location:

Beartooth Highway, Montana.

Summary:

During the course of the day, students examine the high-grade metasupracrustal rocks, related gneisses, and the late Archean granitoids and mafic dikes. We have prepared a number of exercises that might be done with classes at different levels. Depending on the background and preparation of your class you might want to emphasize different learning skills specific to the class level: observation, interpretation, integration (i.e. multiple lines of evidence focused on a given problem), and synthesis (i.e. relationship to the "big picture", drawing from the corpus of geologic knowledge). We have also prepared a compilation of our key scientific results, but these are under seal and we'd like you to do the exercises first as if you were students before taking a look at the supporting evidence.

Context:

This day-long field trip was part of the Teaching Petrology in the 21st Century workshop. The file provided below includes 3 field exercises, including outcrop observation and description, exploring the origin of migmitites in an outcrop, and critical thinking about the granitization debate. The file provided below also includes a field mapping exercise for Long Lake.

Goals:

Goals of this activity are to teach fundamentals of petrology through regional examples and to instruct participants in the use of questions on a field trip.

Assessment and Evaluation:

Students have met the goals of this activity if they are engaged in the field trip and are answering the provided questions and completing the mapping exercise thoughtfully, thoroughly, and accurately.

Materials and Handouts:

Beartooth Highway Field Exercises and Mapping Project (Microsoft Word 57kB Dec1 03)

References:

Migmatites and related rocks
Selected Features of the Precambrian rocks of the eastern Beartooth Mountains, Montana and Wyoming (Microsoft Word 575kB Dec1 03)
Data for metasupracrustal rocks of Hellroaring Plateau (Microsoft Word 959kB Dec1 03)
Data for the plutonic complex of the Long Lake area (Microsoft Word 917kB Dec1 03)
Useful References on the eastern Beartooth Mountains (Microsoft Word 46kB Dec1 03)
Mafic Dykes of the Beartooth Mountains, Montana and Wyoming (Microsoft Word 4.6MB Dec1 03)

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