Laura Hampton, past CSA staffer and Climate Kids Teacher extraordinaire, partners with CSA partner Dr. Eleanora (Norrie) Robbins on interactive field guide to the local geology of San Diego - Learn about their project and ESRI storymap in this fun partner post.
Laura Hampton, past CSA staffer and Climate Kids Teacher extraordinaire, continues to inspire students across the region by making science fun and accessible. Laura’s graduate work offered an opportunity to dig deep into San Diego geology with CSA partner Norrie Robbins and we are so impressed and inspired by their collaborative efforts.
San Diego is a geologically active landscape with many opportunities for field study in Earth science and Laura and Norrie have jumped right in with Investigating Geology In San Diego a new interactive field guide to the local geology of San Diego. Each section contains opportunities to examine rock deposits out in the field with maps, activities, background information, material lists, procedures, and worksheets to help the user learn about and interact with the local geology.
This story map project was created by Laura Hampton as a part of her Master's project from Mississippi State University's Teachers in Geoscience Distance Education Program. In 2020, Laura worked as a field assistant to Dr. Eleanora (Norrie) Robbins (USGS-retired 2001, SDSU-retired 2015) who shared her knowledge and field expertise while collecting samples for her upcoming work on "Origin of our redbeds: Pigmentation by chembiotic oxidation of detrital magnetite in red brown Pleistocene terrace sandstones, San Diego, CA".
This past February, the entire project was presented virtually to middle schoolers at Holly Drive Leadership Academy through a partnership with the Elementary Institute of Science. A total of 31 students received a kit with the samples collected at each field site, a geology notebook, and a ruler. Equipped with the tools and guided by Laura and her fellow EIS instructor Clare Brosnan, the students conducted the science experiments featured in the story map at home and participated in activities that included learning about the rock cycle, fossil identification, compass practice, and processing rocks, minerals, and soils.
Are you ready to dig deep into the rock record? Learn about each period and epoch in San Diego's geologic history, then get outside to collect, log, and process geologic specimens at unique field locations provided in this immersive story map! Bravo Laura and Norrie!