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Hi Folks, As the time is travel planning is underway, I'd like to draw your attention to a GSA post-conference field trip. Details are below. Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, Don 426.* The Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory.* Thurs., 5 Nov. US$95. (1L, R) Cosponsors: GSA Geoscience Education Division; National Association of Geoscience Teachers. Leaders: Don Duggan-Haas, The Paleontological Research Institution; Susan L. Brantley; Tim White. <http://community.geosociety.org/gsa2015/science-careers/fieldtrips#collapse26> *Trip Description* The Critical Zone spans from the top of trees to the bottom of groundwater, where rock meets life. Ten Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) now exist in U.S. The Susquehanna-Shale Hills CZO involves an interdisciplinary team working to (1) advance methods for characterizing regolith, (2) provide a theoretical basis for predicting the distribution, properties and evolution of regolith, and (3) study the impacts of regolith on fluid pathways, flow rates, solute residence times, and response to climate change. The field trip will explore the site and suite of tools used at the CZO. The trip will pay special attention to the use of CZOs for K–16 educators in the environmental and Earth sciences, by sharing and contributing to a Virtual Fieldwork Experience (VFE). VFEs are multimedia representations of actual field sites that can serve as proxies and catalysts for fieldwork. The program will include overviews of CZ Science, and VFEs, using Shale Hills as a case study for the science and pedagogical approach. Participants will contribute to the site’s VFE and be able to use it in their teaching. The VFE is intended to serve as a model for VFEs that participants create, ideally with substantial student participation. A key component in the CZO approach is to train a new cadre of CZ scientists who have been exposed to interdisciplinary collaboration, research and thought–a goal that is being achieved in part through a collaborative three-year REU/RET program between Shale Hills and Christina River Basin CZOs through summer 2016. *Primary leader: *Don Duggan-Haas <[log in to unmask]> Trip co-leader Tim White is a Senior Research Scientist in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and member of the graduate faculty in Geosciences at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). He is a classically trained field sedimentary geologist with expertise in stratigraphy, paleopedology, paleoclimatology, paleoceanography, and more recently, modern soils and landscape evolution. Much of his research has focused on reconstructions of past episodes of global warmth as analogs for Earth’s near term future. Tim earned a B.A. in Geology from Washington and Lee University, and the M.S. in Geology and Ph.D. in Geosciences from The Pennsylvania State University. He spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher in Geoscience at the University of Iowa, before receiving a USGS Mendenhall post-doctoral position in Anchorage. Tim returned to Penn State in 2004. He is the Coordinator of the Critical Zone Observatories National Office. -- <http://bit.ly/MarcellusBook> Don Duggan-Haas, Ph.D. Director of Teacher Programming The Paleontological Research Institution and its Museum of the Earth & Cayuga Nature Center 1259 Trumansburg Road • Ithaca, NY 14850 • museumoftheearth.org phone: 607-821-0910 Skype: dugganhaas *My job is to help Earth & environmental educators kick butt at their jobs. Here are some links related to how my colleagues and I are doing that:* - On virtual fieldwork <http://virtualfieldwork.org> - Our book: The Science Beneath the Surface: A Very Short Guide to the Marcellus Shale <http://bit.ly/MarcellusBook> and an associated presentation <http://bit.ly/MarcellusGateway> - On connecting the field to the classroom <http://bit.ly/SkypeNiagaraRising> - A seven minute video on our national outreach <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkGbDiQznPU>