Smith
(8/22/07) back to syllabus
Fieldbook Expectations & Assessment
Reproducible observations are the currency of science. Reproducible observations require field or lab notes that any technically-educated reader can interpret. As an example, if you are working on a land survey, perhaps a stream cross section, you must have enough information recorded so that someone in the future can reoccupy your benchmarks and precisely reproduce your survey.
There are two main aspects of reproducible results. First, you must take complete notes, with enough information to document what you have done. Second, the notes must be legible and archivable. To have notes last indefinitely, you should use a high-quality fieldbook, such as “Rite in the Rain” brand, and you should use a 3H lead to avoid losing data to water damage and smeared notes.
As a student taking GEOL 260/260L, you will have several opportunities for experiential learning in the field and laboratory setting. I expect you to chronicle your experiential learning activities in a fieldbook, especially when making qualitative observations, or collecting quantitative data. The front of the book, or inside the cover, should be your name, address and phone number. Keep an index of projects up to date near the front of the book.
Kinds of “qualitative data….”
Date, team members, purpose, location, general weather and visibility conditions,
soil or rock type(s), “tape & Brunton” map, sketch maps, outcrop sketches,
sketches of broad vistas, schematic cross-sections or diagrams that illustrate
an interpretation or pose an hypothesis about the investigation. All sketches
should be clearly labeled with scale and view direction (north arrow in the
case of a map).
Kinds of “quantitative data…”
UTM coordinates from GPS, bearings from a compass, autolevel survey data,
total station survey, rotating laser survey, etc.
There are several field reports that are required for the course. The data for those reports must come primarily from your field notes. If you stick with a field science, where observations are regularly taken in note form, you will amass a library of fieldbooks. This library serves several purposes. It is the ultimate “backup” of field data…when your computer crashes. It is a set of legal documents that can become court evidence in environmental cases. It is a record of your life, and the places you have worked. As time goes forward, the survey data and other observations you make grow evermore precious…a baseline for measuring change through time.
I will collect the fieldbooks at the end of the semester. I will assess their quality based upon the following subjective criteria. Name and contact information, use of page numbers and index, neatness, quality of the observations, completeness and reproducibility (on a survey), number of field experiences recorded as compared to the number in the class, archivability (including whether or not I can smudge an entry with my finger).
See the Harrelson et al. pdf file for another example of how to keep excellent field notes.