A well-designed project supports the curriculum, motivates students, and provides a professional service. Service learning is also an underutilized opportunity for outside funding. For more information on the GSA Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, visit the Poky '99 - Spuds 'R' Us website. The calving retreat of LeConte Glacier, underway since 1994, has afforded University of Alaska Southeast undergraduates a singular opportunity to gain surveying and field experience. UAS students work with University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate students and learn to conduct glacier research while surveying on a bedrock ledge high above a fjord adjacent to an extremely active glacier.
Students gain basic surveying skills and learn to observe and record natural events.
Back on campus, they use trigonometry, statistics, GIS, and computer graphical analysis to analyze their data and prepare research papaers to obtain upper division course credit. Trained undergraduates have returned to the field site and acted as field assistants in a larger NSF funded study. Such experience is greatly valued by students and faculty because it leads to higher retention of science students at all levels, and prepares undergraduates for future internships with federal state resource agencies in Alaska. In addition, UAS undergraduates interact with Petersburg High School students and recruit them to science programs in Juneau. Petersburg townsfolk have supplied marine transport to the mainland to help reudce helicopter costs.