Four Corners

Having lived in Arizona, I certainly was familiar with the relative large size of the Navajo Reservation (27,000 square miles- the largest Native American Reservation in the U.S.) compared to the much smaller Hopi Reservation (6000 square miles).  However, I knew virtually nothing about the Ute Reservations until visiting the Four Corners Outdoor School. We drove by signs [...]

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Standing outside at the Four Corners Outdoor School base camp outside of Monticello, UT, one can see the Sleeping Ute off in the distance.  The Sleeping Ute mountain range resembles a person laying down.  Features that can be made out are a head, arms crossed over the chest, hips and legs.  Ute legend tells of [...]

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One of the neatest parts of the Four Corners trip was seeing the petroglyphs at Butler Wash.  Butler Wash is a side canyon off of the San Juan River, whose cliff faces are covered in petroglyphs.  The panel which we stopped at is perhaps the most famous of these petroglyphs and can only be reached [...]

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Arches National Park is 76,519 acres or 119 square miles long and lies in Utah. The park lies atop underground salt beds; basically a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated leaving behind the salt. The salt bed was eventually covered with an ocean that deposited sediments that accumulated and compressed to form sediemtnary [...]

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One of the main things I was looking forward to on this trip was encountering the wildlife of the West.  I thought it would be neat to experience different animals than we have in the East, as well as see if there were any differences between animals of the same species from the East and [...]

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Before embarking on our trip to the Four Corners region of the United States, the first task I assigned the participating students was to define the Colorado Plateau. I didn’t set many parameters. I was expecting the responses to could include information on the following: size, ecology, geology, and culture. My motive for the assignment [...]

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A plateau is defined as a large highland area of fairly level land separated from surrounding land by steep slopes. There are many famous plateaus in the world including the Bolivian Plateau in South America, Ethiopian Plateau in Ethiopia, Tibetan Plateau in China, Deccan Plateau in India, Anatolian Plateau in Turkey, and the Mato-Grosso Plateau [...]

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One of the neatest places I visited while out West was Canyon de Chelly in Chinlee, AZ. The “Chelly� is pronounced “shay� and not as it is looks. I found out that this is a big deal with the native residents, they get very upset if the name is pronounced wrong. The canyon is designated [...]

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As a student participating in the Plymouth State University Bio-Geo-Cultural Education Travel Study Course to the Four Corners region of the U.S., my time visiting schools involved in the Bioregional Outdoor Education Program of the Four Corners Outdoor School was spent in Arizona.  Arizona is one of many states out West which has a water shortage problem.  This [...]

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Driving south out of Farmington, New Mexico on Highway 271, to visit a school on the Navajo Reservation, we happened by a sign for the Bisti Badlands. As a science educator teaching Earth Science at Plymouth State University, I had to explore further. I learned the Bisiti/De-na-zin Badlands is a federally designated wilderness area. About [...]

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