The traveling classroom: Outside Pahrump, Nevada, students search for meteorites

If you've ever been lucky enough to spot one blazing across the night sky, chances are you've made a wish on a "shooting star." But what exactly are these celestial flashes?

They're meteors - space rocks that ignite as they plunge into a planet's atmosphere. While still drifting through space, they're called meteoroids. If they survive the fiery descent and land on a planet's surface, they earn a new name: meteorites.

In late October, Peng Ni and Amy Mainzer, both faculty members in UCLA's department of Earth, planetary and space sciences led a 17-person team of graduate students, volunteers and fellow faculty to a series of dry lakebeds near Pahrump, Nevada, to conduct a fieldwork campaign in search of these otherworldly rocks.

Combining Mainzer's expertise in astronomy with Ni's background in geology, the course on the origin and evolution of the solar system presents meteorite science from both the skies above and the ground below in a hands-on way that has come to define the department's longtime commitment to providing innovative fieldwork experiences for Bruins.

"Students learn how to put the skills we teach in the classroom into practice by going out in the field, making measurements that we can then compare to theory," Mainzer said. "For example, if we use magnets in the field to find meteorites, we're bound to find ones that are more metal-rich, but that only represents a certain type of meteorite, allowing students to better understand the biases inherent in some sampling techniques."

As geophysicist and EPSS chair Jonathan Aurnou sees it, fieldwork is at the heart of the EPSS department's mission, with over half of EPSS faculty members offering hands-on opportunities to students.

"When students step outside the classroom to investigate landscapes, collect samples or first test space-bound instrumentation out in the field, they experience science as a living process," Aurnou said. "These immersive experiences not only deepen their understanding of Earth and the solar system, but also prepare them to tackle the pressing challenges of our time - from natural hazards here on Earth to planetary defense beyond it."

Fieldwork can also forge lifelong friendships and bonds, as geology alumna Karen Loomis can attest - it's held her undergraduate graduating class together for the past four decades.

"These folks are like my second family," said Loomis, who is a venerated geologist in her own right. "We spent so many weekends camping together, mapping geology, including six weeks together at field camp at the White Mountain Research Center in the summer of 1984."

Seeing themselves as scientists

"Fieldwork is a cornerstone of the geoscience student experience because it transforms abstract classroom concepts into real-world understanding," said Mackenzie Day, an EPSS associate professor who manages the GALE Lab. "For many, it's the moment when years of coursework finally click, and they begin to see themselves as geoscientists."

Day has taken students to sites across the western U.S. and beyond, from the Jurassic sandstones of Moab, Utah, to the tectonic landscapes of Death Valley, the mud volcanoes of the Salton Sea and the billion-year-old rocks of the Grand Canyon. Closer to campus, places like Mono Lake and Vasquez Rocks provide opportunities to study faulting, folding and sedimentation.

"Thanks to California's unique geology, UCLA is perfectly positioned to offer a strong, thriving field-based teaching and research program," said Ni, who currently serves on the committee of the UCLA Meteorite Museum alongside Mainzer. "I have colleagues at East Coast universities who fly their students here for that very reason, and it's not uncommon for students from other institutions to join our fieldwork expeditions. Their schools simply don't offer a program like ours."

Expeditions would not be possible without meticulous planning, offering another invaluable lesson to students. Mainzer and Ni had to think through many questions. Where is the nearest hospital? Is there enough food and water being brought for all those involved in the excursion? A first aid kit? Have the participants completed all their required trainings?

"At the heart of any successful field campaign is safety," said Mainzer, who is also leading a research project on non-native invasive plants in Southern California and their role in fueling wildfires. "We need to be prepared to handle whatever comes our way. Only then can we guarantee the experience to be fun and rewarding for all those involved."

Unforgettable experiences outside the classroom

During Ni and Mainzer's meteorite fieldwork campaign, each student found about three meteorites on average. Since their haul was under the Bureau of Land Management's "Casual Collection of Meteorites" policy - allowing up to 10 pounds per person per year - everyone left with a tiny shard of the universe to call their own.

For Hugo Abe, a geochemistry doctoral student and Ni's first graduate mentee, the experience was triply meaningful: He got to find and take meteorites home, witness the Orionid meteor shower, an annual event caused by debris from Halley's Comet - and do so on his birthday.

"As someone who aspires to be a researcher in this field, I find fieldwork crucial for providing contextual information that cannot be gained from textbooks or learned in the laboratory," said Abe, who volunteered as a safety driver on the excursion.

"This trip not only offered that, but also gave me unforgettable moments - from watching the sunset over the Mojave to sharing a surprise birthday cake on a dry lakebed - memories that would have brought tears to my eyes if they weren't already dry from trekking through the desert."