Las Vegas City Wire

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Honors College recently put together a field trip that explored the entire state.

According to a news release from the school, a group consisting of 16 students, four faculty and staff members traveled 1,800 miles throughout Nevada in three different vehicles in an effort to explore the state’s history.

The trip was spearheaded by Andrew Hanson, dean of the Honors College, who said that during the trip a student commented to him that it didn’t look like Nevada.

“I said, ‘No, Yurii, this is what Nevada looks like.’ At first, he didn’t get it, that Las Vegas is the anomaly. It became this running joke. By the time we came back on the west side of the state, south of Tonopah where it starts turning back to desert, ‘Dr. Hanson, this doesn’t look like Nevada.’ And I said, ‘No, this is Nevada, too,’ Hanson said in the release.

This wasn’t Hanson’s first foray into taking students on field trips to explore the landscape as a geologist, but he had a different objective for this trip. Hanson wanted to nurture a visceral awareness for the students of the geographical dynamics that come into play in the state.  

The trip was made possible due to a grant from Nevada Gold Mines that had been postponed since the summer of 2020 due to COVID-19. The trip was pushed back a year and then ultimately canceled so that students could have more time to receive their immunizations.