Programs

Honors Study Away: Geology of Our National Parks

The trip is designed to promote a sense of community and place as we travel through various geologic landscapes and cultural sites.  

Take an adventure with Honors to discover how these landscapes formed and how they've changed through geologic time, why some house explosive volcanoes and why others provide tranquil scenery. We'll discuss the basics of Geology and how they apply to park landscapes. It is said that the National Parks are America's greatest idea. During our travels through the parks, we'll contemplate the controversy and dilemma their very existence presents and learn some practical life lessons along the way.

Enrollment in the IDH 3350 course is required to participate in this study away trip. During the course, we will see how mountains are built along with discussing other geological processes occurring in varied landscapes as we journey through many of the National Parks across the country.

This optional study away trip is offered so that you can experience some of the parks first-hand. Come climb with us, and we think you will agree that setting these lands aside for all people and for future generations truly is America's greatest idea.

• Course: IDH330 Climb Every Mountain: The Geology of the National Parks
• Location: Tampa campus
• Study Away Program: Fall 2024 TBD (Five days – usually the first week of November.) Spring 2025 TBD (Five days – usually the first week of April.)

We will see many changes in vegetation, and landscape as we traverse from the low desert of Phoenix, AZ to the high desert of Flagstaff.  Nowhere else in the US can one see the diversity of geologic landscapes – sedimentary environments used to the advantage of Native American cultures, a giant sinkhole, both ancient and recent volcanism, meteor impact, former beach and dune environments, glaciated areas, fluvial and erosional environments with fossils, arid deserts, places where Apollo astronauts practiced, and landscapes that record plate tectonic scale stress – in such short distances as we’ll see on our day trips around Flagstaff.  

Sites Visited:

• Montezuma Castle and Well
• Grand Canyon
• Cameron Trading Post
• Meteor Crater
• Petrified Forest/Painted Desert
• Crater Flats
• Sunset Crater
• Wupatki/Lomaki/Wukoki/The Citadel
• Doney Mountain

Students must be able to navigate rough/uneven/possibly muddy or icy surfaces as we will do many short hikes, some with a significant change in elevation (900 ft), rise early and stay up late, share a room with three other students, tolerate a variety of weather (can be windy and cold or hot and arid or any combination thereof) and adapt to changes in the schedule.

$200 per person. Plus airfare (~$450) not included.

Questions: Email Judy McIlrath