Mosaic Afield

Students look to the sky for birds of prey.

Dickinson's distinctive Mosaic programs weave together multiple disciplines and collaborative-learning opportunities, often involving full-semester immersion with a team of faculty. Students conduct in-depth field research, think critically about the diverse world they live in and apply what they learn in the classroom in meaningful ways. Past Mosaics include the Jewish Migration Mosaic in Argentina, the Montserrat Mosaic in the Caribbean and the Black Liberation Mosaic, which took students to South Africa and the Mississippi Delta.

This fall, the Natural History Sustainability Mosaic included trips to several Pennsylvania museums and to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

In the field, the Mosaic included an array of outings in and around Pennsylvania, such as observing the management of the state's elk herd at close range, participating in the North American saw-whet owl-banding project and trapping turtles to study populations.

Three further elements of the Mosaic can be explored below: a hawk watch, a fossil-hunting expedition and a trip to islands in the Chesapeake Bay.

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Raptor Shadows on the Sleeping Blue Lady

Mosaic students take to a mountaintop perch to study raptors as they migrate.

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King Phillip Came Over for Good Soup

As part of the fall Mosaic, students go fossil hunting in a local quarry.

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Crabbing With Ooker

Dickinson’s Mosaic program takes students to the Chesapeake Bay, leaving the traditional classroom far behind.

Published November 15, 2012