Focusing the lens on field safety: a workshop for field trip leaders

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This award provides travel support for 25 field-camp leaders to be able to participate in Focusing the Lens on Field Safety: A Workshop for Field Trip Leaders that will take place at the University of Iowa from November 7-8, 2019. Field experiences are an important tool for training earth and environmental scientists, and most undergraduate programs require up to several weeks spent in the field to earn a degree. But field training is not without its risks, which are inherently different and have the potential to be more severe than classroom-based training. This workshop will help to guide field trip leaders towards a culture of improving field safety protocols by contributing to the development of a process that should ultimately become second nature and part of the normal preparations for field excursions. Part of the proposed workshop would be to develop materials for such a national repository. In addition, graduate students will be invited to join in the workshop and student participants will be given the opportunity to become ambassadors for field safety by being involved in the dissemination of information to other entities locally, statewide, and nationally. These opportunities will also allow graduate students to build their professional networks within and outside the academic community. It is widely recognized that field-based training is pedagogically essential for integrating knowledge in the earth and environmental sciences, and it is crucial for employment in the hydrocarbon and environmental industries. The National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) and ExxonMobil have been leading the way in improving field safety protocol. However, one of the components that is underdeveloped in the current standards are protocols for field-camp-like scenarios where students are spread out over a wide area day after day. The outcome from this workshop will be a set of standard operating procedures (SOP) that can be adapted to any dispersed group field activity, whether an educational field trip, research field trip, or field camp. These procedures will help instructors mitigate accidents through pre-activity preparation and training that will result in fewer accidents and time lost in the field. Ultimately, this will enhance and improve scientific education because instructors will be confident in their safety protocols and able to focus on student learning, students will be assured that protocols are in place to ensure their safety, and a decrease in the number of incidents will lead to less disruption during limited and expensive field time.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.