Incorporating field work into introductory geology classes faces several challenges including travel cost and time, student external commitments, and accessibility. As a result, many students have few chances to hone critical field skills. Universities may also be far from adequate field sites, lack funding for field excursions, or have student bodies that work full time. Here, the concept of a “mapping in the lab” activity is expanded to overcome these challenges to teach a range of field-based, geospatial data collection and interpretation projects within a classroom or lab space. Students learn to accurately collect geospatial field data, make and interpret maps, and interpret/interpolate the nature of the underlying geological phenomena. Maps can be based on real-world problems and locations or can be simulated situations and datasets. The classroom is designed with station “outcrops” or sample locations. Each station has rock and/or fossil samples and cards with information or data catered to the project’s objectives. The distribution and nature of each station is based on a key developed by the instructor that shows the extent of data, location of geologic structures, distribution of stratigraphic facies, etc. Students are given blank maps and must collect spatial data as they would out in the field. The level of data they need to gather can be tailored to the student’s level of expertise or experience. Students work in teams to collect the data and make maps.

Three examples are presented to demonstrate applicability for different introductory geology courses. Students in a Historical Geology course generate a geologic map of a set of folds and thrust fault given lithologies and strike and dip information. They then use the map to generate a cross section of the underlying structure. In a sedimentary geology course, students make facies distribution maps based on limited outcrop data to interpret depositional environments. Finally, in an example for a paleontology course, students use fossils placed at the stations to map out spatial biofacies distributions which are used to interpret depositional/environmental gradients along a nearshore environment. These expanded “map in the lab” activities provide students more practice with field-based data collection and interpretation in a low-cost, accessible setting. Such activities can be expanded to incorporate key geospatial learnings in all geoscience disciplines.