San Francisco State University - SF ROCKS

Reaching Out to Communities and Kids with Science in San Francisco.

2004 Summer National Parks Tour

In June 2004, the SF-ROCKS led students from the 2003 Summer Institute on a field trip to several national parks in the western U.S. Our intent was to provide the students with additional opportunities to learn geology in a field setting while enjoying the scenery of the western states. Traveling from San Francisco, we stopped in the Lake Mead area of Nevada on our way to Grand Canyon National Park. After a day in the Grand Canyon we traveled to Bryce and Zion National Parks in Utah where students were introduced to the geology of the Grand Staircase. After several days of hiking the trails and canyons in the area, including the Narrows (the Virgin River gorge in Zion National Park), the students continued to be in awe of the geology of the Colorado Plateau. After leaving the Colorado Plateau we traveled to Yellowstone National Park, a definite highlight of the trip! For many of the students this was their first introduction to hot springs and geothermal features and the park also provided an opportunity to view wildlife up close (including bears)!

On the return home we traveled through the Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole, WY and through lava fields and Idaho and spent our last night camping on a cirque at the Angel Lake campground in Nevada. This was the first trip of its kind for the SF-ROCKS program as our program emphasizes local trips in the San Francisco Bay Area. We modeled our trip after the University of New Orleans summer program for urban high school students that serves as an effective recruiting tool for their geology majors program.