Students dig into geology studies Mountains provide natural classroom for geology students Click on any of these pictures from the geology trip for larger images. For most students, the very thought of hiking in the rain for four hours in the middle of a mountain range in early spring would seem like torture. But a hearty group of Temple geology students viewed the trip to the Appalachian Mountains near Altoona, Pa., in April not as a waterlogged wilderness misadventure, but as a vital extension of their in-class learning. Geology is a field science.
Students get to measure rock sections and sample rock soils.
It would be impossible to teach what we can show in a field trip in a traditional classroom. Terry added that field trips allow students to literally see geology as a process in which three-dimensional bodies of rock are shaped throughout the fourth dimension of time. It's an invaluable part of the students' educational experience. The field is critical to provide the depth of geologic history. The layers of rock are like the pages of books.