Doc Roc's Catskills trip is a true learning experience

The forecast for Sunday, April 17, looked bleak. Luckily for Dr. John Nicolas and his students, the sun broke through on a cloudy day. Every semester, Nicolas passes around a signup sheet to students in his Earth & the Environment and Geology classes for an extra credit opportunity and a learning experience. When the students write their name down, and pay a reasonable $5 fee, they are signing up to participate in a fossil dig in New York's Catskill Mountains.

As the bus pulled up at 7:30 a.m., 38 students, most blasting iPods and similar mp3 players piled inside. Nicolas announces to the half asleep bunch what they will all be doing on the trip. On the agenda, are two fossil digs and a ride up the mountain to view a waterfall. 

First up is a fossil dig at a construction site. Everyone gets off the bus and grabs the gear that Nicolas supplies. Now, they are all armed with a hammer, chisel, gloves, and a Ziploc bag to bring home any souvenirs. This experience allows Nicolas to show his pupils some of what a geologist does.

"It gives life, at least for one day, to what I teach and what they learn. In this case, fossils," he said. "The students have a good time too."

The group walks up the incline of the site to come across a man with similar, but bigger tools. That man is Ralph Mackenstein, a teacher at Roton Middle School in Norwalk, Connecticut, and a good friend of Nicolas. Mackenstein, who is a paleontology enthusiast, tells students that they can expect to find brachiopods, corals, and cephalopods in the shale as long as they're willing to put in the work. If they find any viable fossils, there is a chance to earn extra points on top of the two points they earn just for going.

"Students can expect to find fossils from about 400 million years ago," Mackenstein said. "Life began in the oceans. Plants were the only things living on land. And what they're finding here are some of the first creatures that began populating the Earth."

As students hammer away at the rock, they start finding imprints and even preserved shells or bodies from what lived hundreds of millions of years before humans. Every time a fossil is found, students enthusiastically show it to Nicolas allowing him one of the pleasures of teaching.

"Field trips give me the opportunity to get to know students a little more," he said.    

 Up next, the bus pulls into a limestone quarry where students have the chance to find more fossils or quartz crystals called Herkimer diamonds. This location sets the stage for a fossil hunt of sorts but you'll have to go on the trip for more details.

The last stop is the perfect sendoff for Nicolas' Catskills trip. In the fall, students can go into Catskill State Park and appreciate the wondrous view from the mountain. This time, and being that the park is closed, they got up close to Kaaterskill Falls, New York's highest waterfall, is a nice treat and a fantastic photo opportunity. The falls were gushing with all the snow this past winter and the rainfall the area has been getting.

As everyone sat on rocks to listen to the crashing rapids and felt the mist from the falls on this spring day, you could tell that this trip, simply put, was appreciated by all.