Geology of Utah's National Parks

Visit Website for the 2005 Field Course
The 2005 course will be offered :June 24 - July 10, 2005


Dinosaur National Monument, Utah

Photo courtesy of Vince Duperron

Tentative Course dates for 2006: June 13 - July 2

This course is designed to bring together professional teachers, undergraduate students that are interested in secondary science education, and undergraduate geoscience majors for a two-week-long field course. The goals of the course are to provide undergraduate students and teachers with meaningful field experiences, and to encourage motivated and well-trained geoscientists to enter the teaching profession.

Development of this course is made possible by support provided by the National Science Foundation, and Michigan Tech's Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences and Summer Programs Office.

Geology of Utah's National Parks makes use of exposures of Pennsylvanian through Cretaceous rocks in southeastern Utah. Five National Parks and Monuments are the sites of investigations conducted during the course.

This site was constructed to provide information about what happens during the course. The syllabus section (below) gives detailed information about the activities on each day of the course. The photo gallery provides geologic overviews and photographs (with captions) of geologic features. You can get to the photo gallery from the syllabus or vice versa so take some time and wander around!

Don't miss your chance to visit Utah's canyon country and learn about geology in the nation's best outdoor classroom.

Map of Field Sites
This link takes you to a map of the field sites.  You can select the numbers on the map and be directly transferred to the syllabus for each day of the course.

Course Description and Syllabus
This contains the itinerary, with detailed descriptions of the field sites and exercises, as well as links to photos of each site.

Photo Gallery
This section leads to photos of sites that are investigated during the course.

What to Bring
This section contains a list of equipment that you should bring if you participate in the course.

Course Facts
    Information about credit hours, lab fees, equipment provided, and other important facts are available through this link.

How to Register
If you are interested in participating in the course, this will help you to get started. Scholarships to help teachers offset tuition and lab fees are available through MTU. We also will try to include information to outside funding sources to which students can apply (We're still working on this and could use your help!)

Course Personnel and Contact Information
This section contains information about the instructors and teaching assistants.

Go to Jackie Huntoon's homepage.

Go to Gregg Bluth's homepage.