UW-River Falls - Geology Unit

The Geology Unit at UWRF

Geology has become a popular major among both men and women at UWRF over the past 30 years. Our graduates are spread around the country performing work in the fields of mineral exploratrion, petroleum geology, engineering geology, environmental geology, geohydrology, paleontology and working at universities in a diverse set of subjects. We teach a full range of undergraduate classes and in nearly all the upper level classes field trips and laboratories are an integral part of the learning process.

We have equipment sufficient to support these endeavors including the following:
A worden gravimeter, rock cutting saw, polarizing microscopes, binocular microscopes, Three-D seismic modeling computer, brunton compasses, etc etc etc

Field trips are an important part of any geologists education. Despite having field trips in many of our classes, we have a 12-15 day Regional Geology excusion each year to a different part of the country (or even other countries). Our triops vist Colorado, Texas, Wyoming, Minnesota, Quebec, Nevada, Utah, Ontario, Florida and many other localities.

Faculty are among the top rated in the university. In 2005 average scores for student evaluations of faculty ranged from 4.24/6 to 5.83/6. Geology faculty averaged 5.36/6. This placed them 16th out of 70 measured units on campus. Of the sixteen higher scoring units five were each represented by a single faculty, one was entirely graduate level classes, two were subcategories of a single department and one other consisted of specially chosen faculty from across campus. Included in our averages are the questionaires used in our general education classes, a situation where good teaching techniques are important since we must address the needs of a wide range of students, many of who find science very challenging, and who may start the semester with no desire to take a science class and no understanding of what geology is.

The geology faculty truely are dedicated to the learning of thier undergraduate students. Each year they supervise up to four senior research projects. These projects are designesd to let our students experience the "discovery" of reaseach and to get expereince in measuring & interpreting their own data. The experience culminates in a presentation modeled on the Geological Society of America professional meetings. We contend that this makes our graduates better able to compete in graduate school and in the workplace, since the experience gives them a better understanding of the worth of, and the pitfalls associated with, research.