Learning to map while also respecting the land
Dr. Alison Graettinger The scale of geologic history is not just spread over a larger time span than many of us are used to thinking about, but also a larger physical scale. To help train future geologists to be comfortable with these large scales, and three dimensional challenges of our planet's history, we take students out into the field and make them map, the old fashioned way, by hand. I went with the UMKC field camp this June to learn about the places and projects that we use to train our geology majors as I will likely take over leading the camp in the future. UMKC field camp students putting boots on rocks and pencils to paper to gain experience making geologic maps in South Dakota. For many people the idea of making a map seems outdated. People hear words like map and geography and assume that it is all done, and they only have to worry about changing country boundaries. Maps, however, are a means of conveying information in a spatial way, that doesn't just in...