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Greetings to the list, I will be one of the people helping out with teaching a structural geology course next September. We are thinking of doing a different sort of in-class exercise than any of us have tried before, so I am seeking help and suggestions here. Our University is located in northern Sweden, and the nearby area is lacking in appropriate, easily accessible, outcrops displaying structure we can take our students to to give them a chance to measure orientations etc. on real rocks. Therefore I thought it might be fun to take the students on an afternoon simulated field trip to somewhere far away, where there is good outcrop displaying structures simple enough to use as a teaching exercise. What I am envisioning is a series of stations within a large room (like a gym). Each station would have a photograph of an outcrop, a physical object oriented in the same orientation as the rocks of the outcrop upon which they can measure the attitude (or, more than one physical object each oriented at the appropriate angle if several are needed to properly represent that outcrop), perhaps some actual rock samples to touch and look at that are representative of the outcrop, and a plain topographic map showing where the outcrop is located. The students would have their own blank topo map on which they could record the geology as they see it, and the strike and dip symbols as they measure them. After an afternoon of "mapping" they would create their own final geologic map and cross section +/- stereo net plots for the field area. Once they were done with the exercise we could then compare their results with the published geologic map of the area and discuss as a group how their "mapping" compares, and in what manner, and why, theirs are different. However, in order to do this I would need (an) appropriate field area(s) and photos of enough outcrops within the field area to make it possible to create a map in an afternoon's "mapping" (the good news is that the time it would take to travel between outcrops would be negligible in such a setting). Therefore I share this thought here and ask: Can any of you think of an appropriate field area for such an exercise? If so, do you happen to have suitable photos (that you would be willing to share) of enough outcrops in that area to make such a project doable? If you don't have such photos of an appropriate field area, but know someone who probably does, please forward this message to them, along with a note of which field area you had in mind. Have any of you tried this already? If so, how did it go? Would you recommend doing such a thing? What would you do differently next time? Would you be willing to share your photos and other resources? Thanks, --Reia ****************************************************** Reia M. Chmielowski Assistant Lecturer Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering Division of Geosciences Luleå University of Technology SE-971 87 Luleå Sweden Email: [log in to unmask] Phone: +46 (0)920 492033 Mobile: +46 72-539 07 76 Fax: +46-920-491199 Room: F833 http://ltu-se.academia.edu/ReiaChmielowski ******************************************************