Virtual Field Trips: Notes and Instructions
The virtual trips selected for your exploration this semester differ in content, format, degree of completion, and intended audience. Below are some suggestions and specific assignments dealing with each. Read these before you embark on a trip; they may help you decide which one to try.
I. Indian Peaks, Colorado
This virtual field trip is designed as a module for the Virtual Geography Department and is in the test stage. (This means that it is a more or less complete draft ready to be used and evaluated.)
The field trip instructs students on both alpine glaciation and vegetation zonation in the Colorado Rockies. For our biogeography class, you need only concern yourself with stops that deal with vegetation (Stops 1-4). I suggest you approach the field trip in the following order:
- Read the Student Instructions.
- Go to Background Information
- Check the color map. Scroll right to find stops 1-4. Note the elevational differences. (After you complete the trip, try to find this site on a map of Colorado in an atlas.)
- Go to Stop 1. Continue on to stops 2, 3, and 4 and be sure to takethe little side trips at some of these stops. Take notes as set forth in the student instructions.
- Go to Wrap Up and follow instructions. (You need to scroll down to find them. When I last checked this page, an illustration was missing at the top of the page giving the incorrect impression that there was nothing but a title and caption available.)
You should turn in for a grade your field notes, the requested graph, and a brief evaluation of the virtual trip. The evaluation should include your assessment of the adequacy of the content (including illustrations); of how well the content fit the assignment (that is, the ability to take notes, draw sketches, etc.); and the ease with which you could navigate around the various stops. Add comments on how this virtual field trip could be improved.
II. Point Reyes, California: Ecosystem Field Trip
This is another trip being developed as a module for the Virtual Geography Department. It is less complete than the Indian Peaks trip. Specific assignments or questions for each stop are lacking. Therefore, you need to consider the instructions given below.
- Read the introductory material on plant communities. (Of course, you may certainly also look at information under the headings geology, landforms, and climate!)
- Work from the plant community page to visit the various plant communities
- coastal strand communities
- coastal prairie and rangeland
- coastal shrub
- marshland
- Bishop pine
- Douglas pine
Be sure to check out the quick time panorama of Point Reyes, accessible from the coastal prairie site, if your computer permits!
While taking this virtual field trip:
Take notes and make sketch maps or diagrams of the ecological distribution patterns of each community. (For example, different habitats are described for coastal strand. Convert the verbal description into a diagram.)
Your final field trip report should address the following points:
- What environmental factor or factors appear to control the structure and ecological distribution patterns of vegetation in each community? Illustrate with clean, neat renderings of your field sketches.
- Describe and compare the geographic distribution patterns of Bishop Pine and Douglas fir. Look in a field guide to North American trees that contains range maps. Draw or otherwise include two maps showing the ranges of these tree species. Indicate on your map the location of Point Reyes. What does it mean that Bishop pine is a relict?
- Create a scenario that explains the distributions of these two pine species.
- Evaluate the field trip as it is set up in this draft form. Can you make some suggestions to the author as she refines the trip? What questions about the Point Reyes vegetation do you still have that author might clarify for you?
Return to biogeography home page
Created by Susan Woodward, October 9, 1997
