Orientation Week
| Students accepted into the IRIS Undergraduate Internship Program will begin their summer experience by participating in a 5-day orientation at an IRIS member institution where seismology is being used to study important and exciting geologic processes. The goal of the orientation period is to develop a strong sense of community among the interns and provide an introduction to some of the most exciting aspects of modern seismology. Experience with the tradition of “field camps” over years of geoscience education shows that discussing earthquakes at the base of a dramatic fault scarp, for example is a vastly richer learning experience from the normal class setting. Additionally, this intensive experience will provide students with the opportunity to establish a social presence among the internship group and to learn from each other, prior to being placed at IRIS institutions for the summer. Social presence, the ability of learners to project themselves socially and emotionally as real people in an online learning community, has been shown to be a significant factor improving instructional effectiveness. The orientation period will serve to increase social interaction, encourage learning satisfaction, help initiate in-depth discussions and promote collaborative learning for the remainder of the summer. |  |
The 2008 Internship Site | The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) has been selected as the site for the initial student orientation because of it’s excellent location for field experiences along the Rio Grande Rift Valley, its superb research and computational facilities, extensive field equipment at the IRIS PASSCAL facility on campus and convent dormitory housing. While at NMT interns will participate in a variety of field trips and lectures, lead by leading experts from within the IRIS community that will introduce them to topics essential to gaining a rapid grasp of the fundamentals of seismology research. Topics will include the tectonics of western North America, earthquakes, earth structure, and seismological data collection and analysis. In the evenings, lab sessions will introduce interns to the UNIX operating system, the commonly used computing platform in seismological studies. The orientation will also place a special emphasis on training interns to take advantage of online communication technologies (eg. on-discussion boards, video conferencing) that will be available to them once placed for their summer research. This week is an intensive but exciting experience that will shape each internship class into a cohesive whole. |
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