Workshop to Assess Field Education Support by the GAGE Facility

Written by Donna Charlevoix
December 24, 2014

Overview

On November 17 and 18, 2014, 21 faculty and researchers interested in incorporating geodetic instrumentation and tools into field education met at UNAVCO in Boulder, Colorado for the Field Education and Support by the UNAVCO GAGE Facility Workshop. The goal of this workshop was to bring together educators who are interested in, or are already actively using, geodesy in a field education context.

Growing Need for Technologies in Field Education

Fieldwork is an integral part of the geosciences and there is a longstanding tradition of teaching field methods as part of the undergraduate curricula. As the technologies for scientific examination of Earth have grown, there is more interest in introducing these technologies into field education curriculum. Geodetic technologies commonly used by the research community include static and real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS, terrestrial, airborne, and mobile laser scanning (TLS, ALS, MLS - based on lidar [light detection and ranging] technology), radar, and photogrammetry.

The Role of the GAGE Facility in Field Education

UNAVCO has pioneered the use of TLS at geologic field camps. Over the past several years, UNAVCO has developed a growing program that involves bringing TLS systems to geology field camps throughout the West. In 2014, UNAVCO supported five geology field camps with TLS instrumentation and instruction, giving approximately 100 students the opportunity to design a TLS survey, operate instrumentation, process data, and make geologic analyses with the high-resolution 3D data. Through community input from this workshop and additional survey results, UNAVCO will develop a plan to more broadly provide community support for field education experiences.