Each team collects and synthesizes data for approximately four weeks. The students and faculty then return to one of the consortium campuses and spend one to two weeks writing and illustrating reports on their team's research. Each team also writes an extended abstract for inclusion in the symposium volume and presents its results in poster form at the research symposium in April. They are designed to allow advanced earth science students to complete their own year-long research project in the context of a research group. The students prepare for the summer by reading suggested selections from the geological literature.
Research begins in the summer with four weeks of field or laboratory work.
The participants help one another collect data and discuss problems and results throughout the four weeks. During the following academic year, the students continue their work as independent research projects or senior honors theses at their home institutions under the guidance of an on-campus sponsor . The research group continues to communicate through e-mail and may come together for an academic year workshop. The student project culminates in a paper evaluated for credit at the home institution, an oral or poster presentation at the research symposium in April, and an extended abstract published in the symposium volume. Many of these students also present their work at regional or national professional meetings.