GEOL 4050K - Geography and Geology of National Parks

This course is a Maymester Study Away course. This is a field course designed to allow students to witness and experience National Parks, National Monuments, State Parks, and other places of significance based on their geography and geology. Unique landforms, climates, biomes, and locations will be the focus of the program. Secondary emphases will include learning about different cultures, environmental policy, urban geography of cities visited (e.g., Salt Lake City, Moab, Flagstaff, Sedona), and human/environment interactions such as tourism and its impacts, mining, wildland/urban interface, animal attacks, pollution, climate change, and natural disasters. Topics covered include desert landforms, glacial and mountain landforms, aeolian landforms, volcanic landforms, fluvial landforms, impact landforms, lacustrine landforms, weathering landforms, and erosional landforms. Students will see, touch, and identify various forms of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks and numerous unique minerals and soils and experience dark skies. The value of the National Park system will be evident by the unique landforms and biodiversity they protect. Climates from desert to tundra will be witnessed, and plants and animals that cannot be found in Georgia will be seen and discussed.

Prerequisite/Corequisite:
Prerequisite: Any GEOL or ENVS course or GEOG 1112/L or GEOG 1111K or permission of instructor

Hours:
4

Cross-listed
GEOG 4050K