Honors Scholars Lauren Orner (English major, left) and Zanya Stephenson (Communication Arts & Sciences major, right) are enrolled in a unique course this semester. GEOSC 097H is a one-credit laboratory special topics course that allows honors students to satisfy the laboratory requirement necessary for Penn State's general education science program for liberal arts students. For this course, Lauren and Zanya are field mapping along the Green Trail at Tyler Arboretum with the assistance of GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. Their field data, enhanced with photos, are being coded into Google Earth as a virtual tool for people to explore before going on a walk or hike. In addition, Lauren and Zanya will be constructing a profile of the elevation changes a hiker would experience along the trail. These undergraduate researchers will be sharing their results with the staff of Tyler Arboretum upon the conclusion of the project, as well as giving a presentation about their work at the Eastern Colleges Conference of Sigma Xi (The Scientific Research Society) in April 2011.
