HR: 08:30h
AN: ED51A-03 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Petrology at Princeton
AU: * Hollister, L S
EM: linc@princeton.edu
AF: Department of Geosciences,, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
AB: Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology at Princeton has evolved from a course f or junior or senior majors to a course that targets sophomores who might major in geology. The prerequisite is one prior course in geology. The course is constructed around a one-week series of field exercises in the Rio Grand rift of New Mexico. These are taken during our fall break. During the field exercises they collect metamorphic or volcanic rocks that form the basis of a project that they work on in the second half of the semester. They make thin sections of their rocks, learn some microscopy and mineralogy as they examine them, and prepare a final paper with the structure of a research article. The students give oral reports in an "AGU like" session. Part of their grade is based on their questioning of their peers. Prior to the one-week trip, the students are taken on half or full-day field trips to central Atlantic rift features in the vicinity of Princeton. These trips and related labs prepare them for the trip to New Mexico. They must keep a notebook in which they record their field observations. The notebooks for the one-week trip are evaluated and the grade is a significant fraction of the final grade. This course began as an experiment, which was driven by a need to increase the number of majors in Geosciences. The course works best for class sizes of 6 to 10; one or two do not continue in geology, and one or two are already majoring in other sciences. Veterans of former classes come as assistants on the one week trip. Thus, the students considering majoring in Geosciences are mentored by the older students. And the veterans add to their petrology and mineralogy education through instruction of the younger students. The trip is expensive. Costs are covered by income from endowed funds set up to provide field experiences for undergraduates. This course helps tremendously in introducing eastern students to the geology that is so dramatically displayed in the west, and that is pretty well covered over by houses and trees and highways in the east.
DE: 3600 MINERALOGY AND PETROLOGY (replaces
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting