The Spring Banquet and Alumni Dinner was held at the German Club Manor on Saturday evening.

Assistant Professor Jorge San Juan (North Carolina State University) gave the Friday seminar, "Salty and muddy: The impact of salinity and clay content on cohesive sediment erosion." The visit was hosted by Assistant Professor Julia Cisneros.

Research Scientist Sean Bemis and grad students Denise Burgett and Ben Eppinger made several visits to Kipps Elementary classroom to talk about the critical zone and to guide the students in making their own critical zones.

Undergraduate student Simba Srivastava was one of two VT students invited to give a keynote talk at the Fralin Undergraduate Research Fellows symposium.

Alumnus and super-donor Fred Webb, a retired professor at Appalachian State University, spoke to students involved in the Riva Study Abroad program about his experiences teaching field camp in Italy.

The Museum hosted -- for the second time in a month -- a group of approximately 60 children from the Floyd County school system last week. The students cycled through stations focused on light and optics, plate tectonics, the rock cycle, the stream table, and paleontology. Mariah Green and Mark Caddick co-organized, and the stations were primarily manned by student volunteers, including Grant Euen, Jonny Prouty, Alaina Helm, David Bunin, Katie Hughes, Alix Ehlers, Alina Valop, Chloe Smith, and Sofia Kryder.

The Museum hosted a Paint-In event, led by Mariah Green.

Several VT-Geosciences students, including Desire Piphus, Ella Davis, Carly Bauer, and Asenath Kwagalakwe, presented their research at the Southeastern Geological Society of America meeting in Asheville, NC.

On April 10th, 16th, and 17th, members of the department ran field trips for the 8th-grade Earth Science classes of Blacksburg Middle School to the Huckleberry Trail. Earth Science is a required 8th grade subject in Montgomery County Public Schools, but previously has not included a field experience. This first-ever geology field trip successfully engaged 350 middle-school students! Presenters and volunteers from the department included Danielle Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Curtiss, Ella Davis, Isaac Pugh, Michala Puckett, Rachel Reid, Rick Law, Sam Haines, and Jim Spotila, as well as Karen Weber (VA-DEQ), Michelle Klopfer (VT Engineering Education), and Zhenghao Zhou (VT Mining and Minerals Engineering). Funding for this outreach project is provided by NSF.  Photo credits: Zhenghao Zhou.