COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 25 ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF FRANK PAZZAGLIA In addition to the learning of the ropes of the Earth and environmental sciences professions that take place every year during Field Camp, Peters emphasizes that research has always been woven into its fabric. “One of the teaching assistants we’ve had for the last two years, Sedona Boyle ’24, stayed out west with a field assistant to complete her master’s degree after this year’s Field Camp,” Peters said. “This year we also visited a field site in Wind River Canyon of a doctoral student of mine, Zhihong Huang ’25,” Peters adds, “who had a paper published last year on observations that we made with field camp students.” The Field Camp experience also emphasizes a sense of scale. Most travel that people do these days is air travel. When they’re done, they get back on the plane and fly home, never realizing how far away everything is, or how long it actually takes to get somewhere by other means. “We drive from Pennsylvania all the way to Idaho and back, and you actually get to see the landscape change,” Peters said. “We first go from the Lehigh Valley onto the Allegheny plateau, and when you do that, During the two weeks before the trip, students prepare pre-visit materials for the projects at each of the field sites, review analytical approaches, and develop strategies for each project. Peters said that these steps closely follow how a professional would prepare for visiting a field site. “Lehigh was a pioneer in experiential education,” Peters said. “We realized early on that having students actually do things in a long form, in contrast to a three-hour lab, is a much different, immersive experience.” “If you look at our syllabus, we try to pack in as much learning as possible,” Peters added. “Not just with lessons, but things that you see and experience, and how those all interact in the real world—that’s something that’s hard to do in a lab.” For example, on day two the field camp caravan pulls into Baraboo, Wisconsin, known for the Baraboo Syncline—a type of rock fold formed by plate tectonics. “A long time ago, the North American continent was flooded by oceans, and you see the erosional beach environment preserved in the rocks, places where they were exposed and weathering,” Peters said. “We can actually see that incident in time, preserved in the geologic record.” “You can see it in Wisconsin, but also in Wyoming, and in lots of different places,” Peters added. “After students have been introduced to it a couple times, they start noticing it wherever it occurs—in fact, there is a comparable spot on top of South Mountain on the Lehigh campus, but it is covered by a forest and is difficult to see today.” It can be seen along the Saucon Valley Rail Trail where Pazzaglia helped install an interpretive sign. Students camp in tents, setting up base camps with essential resources while carrying all their own food and scientific equipment.
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