I know I’ve mentioned my Geog 196 class once before, but I just can’t get enough of how cool the class is. Held by Dr. Ian Walker in the geography department, the course is about coastal geomorphology with special emphasis placed on California and North American coasts. Co-taught alongside the Geog 296 grad class, it’s a project and field-based course where the majority of your time is spent out on field trips and working on a quarter-long investigative project.
In my opinion, the best part about the class has the be that students are the ones leading the trips each week. Each week a couple students compile activities and faciliate discussion on a given morphological topic where we go in depth about the history, geology, and policy surrounding different morphological features around Santa Barbara.
Recently we had talked about coastal bluffs in Isla Vista, and my group (which also included Tyler from our major) got to lead. In our field trip we talked about the geology and physics behind the blulffs, did some group observations on superposition and coastal protection, and finally talked about policy and management surrounding bluff erosion.
Last week, for our class’ final field trip we drove through Santa Barbara and Montecito and looked at some marine terraces in the region. Besides the educational aspect of the course, the class provides some lovely opportunties to go out and look at cool spots near campus that you might not find out about otherwise. My personal favorite was La Conchita, where landslides had wiped out parts of the neighborhood over the last few decades.
A super cool benefit of the course format is that because the class size so small, it ends up allowing for interesting discussion between the undergrads, grads, and Dr. Walker, and I find that you end up learning a lot more than from a typical lecture.
Again, I highly advise anyone interested in marine geology or geomorphology to take this course; I assure that you will leave this class inspired and filled with memorable experiences.
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