Earth Science students fitted out for fieldwork thanks to £2500 gift
First-year Earth Science undergraduates got a rare deal this year - getting fully kitted out for field studies for just £5, thanks to a donation from an Earth Sciences alumna.
The £2500 gift paid for equipment such as rock hammers, folding rules and field notebooks for the entire class, which they will use throughout the four years of their degree course.
'After days of student budgeting and introduction talks it was an absolutely delightful surprise to be told we'd actually be getting all of our equipment for a tiny fraction of the price. It makes me love my rock hammer all the more to know it was a gift from a past student!' said first-year undergraduate Sarah Payne.
'It was also really nice to see an example of what I have heard a lot recently - about how the Earth Sciences department is a really close-knit community and everyone really gets on and enjoys their time here. I hope in several years I can repay the favour to a group of first years.'
It makes me love my rock hammer all the more to know it was a gift from a past student!
Sarah Payne, first-year Earth Sciences undergraduate
'Many thanks for the generous donation of essential funds towards field equipment for our incoming undergraduate students,' said Emma Brown, the academic adminstrator at the department. 'It was a pleasure to be able to tell them at their induction that they only needed to pay £5 each towards the costs of the equipment, when they had been expecting to pay well over £100 in all.'
The gift came as a result of the Earth Sciences newsletter mailing in Autumn 2011, which went out to over 1600 recipients.
Earth Sciences students incur additional costs as a part of their fieldwork course. Aside from equipment costs in their first year, 2011 students must pay £350 per year towards the cost of field teaching, amounting to a total of £1400 on top of their tuition fees. The department itself spends almost £200,000 a year on fieldwork costs.
The Department of Earth Sciences is also grateful for the support it has received from BP, who sponsored the first year’s compass clinometers, and the Oxford Geological Group, whose gift paid for the students' handlenses.
For more information on how to support field teaching at Earth Sciences, please visit the Earth Sciences website or contact Hannah Jackson