26 ACUMEN • SPRING 2025 are carried in a giant Penske Truck, which makes up the tail end of the van caravan. “We have a kitchen, and we have a solar panel-powered power system that keeps refrigerators running, because we transport a lot of food,” Peters said. “The students tell us they eat better on field camp than they do at any other point in their young lives.” While the food may be good, camping is something that can be daunting for some students. “This past year when we left Yellowstone on the last day of camp, we got hit with a mid-June snowstorm,” Peters said. “All the students’ tents had about half an inch of snow on them, and it was a rough, cold morning. “But we got everybody warmed up, fed them, and got on our way back to Lehigh,” Peters added. “And they did great at it—they were laughing and having a good time. Some of the people who have never camped before turned out to be really strong in ways they never knew, and that can be a real empowering experience.” For Peters, the Field Camp isn’t just a camping trip that has science. It’s much more of a science trip that also incorporates the best of a liberal arts education, which includes elements of personal growth and even cultural exploration. “Students come back with some skills that are very hard to teach,” Peters said. “One of them is autonomy: they’re responsible for packing lunch, keeping themselves fed and hydrated. We give them everything they need to succeed, but they have to choose to do so.” While the unofficial motto of Field Camp may be that participants come as students but leave as professionals, it also affords them the chance to experience the cultural history of the places they visit. “We go to the Badlands, we go to Devils Tower, we go to Yellowstone where students see Old Faithful—all of this great geology and geoscience,” Peters said. “In doing so, we experience the same landscape appreciated by native peoples for more than 10,000 years. “We cross the Mississippi River, we cross the Missouri River, we stop at one of the Lewis and Clark encampments where there’s a giant statue honoring indigenous peoples— there’s so many phenomenal cultural things that we do along the way to place everything in context.” ● you’re changing into a different geomorphic province, so you’ll notice that the rivers are dissected more, but the top surface is much flatter.” “And then you drop down into Ohio, which is so unbelievably flat,” Peters added, “and that’s because it’s an old lake bottom that was all underwater during glacial periods.” An Immersion in Fieldwork Another unique thing about Lehigh’s Field Camp is that the traveling troupe actually camps the entire time, rather than staying in hotels. “We make base camps and students sleep in tents,” Peters said. “We pick places where there’s good support resources, so every place has bathrooms, running water, stuff like that. But there are no structures—we make all of that ourselves.” All the camp’s food provisions and scientific equipment for the trip For more than 50 years, Field Camp has immersed students in hands-on learning, camping across the country to study land and natural systems.
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