Physical Geology at Black Hawk College is an introductory course in geology. The course is a traditional lecture-style class, with a two hour lab. Through the use of lectures, textbook, and lab exercises, students explore and study rocks, and the processes that form rocks and shape the Earth. The range of topics in this course covers everything from rock and mineral formation and identification, to plate tectonic, earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciers, deserts and remote sensing techniques. We'll even examine the geologic processes that have shaped the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars. While sharing many similarities with Earth, each planet has its own unique features.

The laboratory section of this course gives students a hands-on approach to learning about mineral and rock identification, topographic and geologic map reading, relative and absolute dating techniques, and geologic processes. Students will also participate in a field trip which examines local stream systems, human influenced terrain and geomorphic processes.

Students may also be asked to complete selected projects for this course, such as term research papers, oral presentations, in-class debates, and research article summary papers.

For those students needing a lab science course, this course meets the Lab Elective requirements.

Instructor

Richard Harwood

Student Comments

Interested in seeing what students think after completing the course? This link will take you to a web page with recent student comments for the Physical Geology 101 course.

 

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