Rocking real-world skills

A dozen Brock University Earth Sciences and Environmental Geoscience students spent 10 days earlier this month at Charlton Lake Camp, near Killarney, Ont., applying classroom knowledge to field research. The experiential education trek is the crux of the Earth Sciences 3P99 Field Camp — Solid Earth course, which brings together learnings from students’ first three years of their four-year degree programs and provides them with the practical field experience required for pursuing a Professional Geoscientist designation. While in the field, the class gained hands-on experience mapping outcrops, taking measurements, observing spatial relationships and making general observations about the nature of rock units. Evenings were spent analyzing the day’s work, producing maps and writing a final report. Students climbed to the summit of the Lorraine Formation, a two-billion-year-old quartzite, for a great view of the sites they mapped.