Penn State Dirt Devils Make Middle East Trip

What does Indiana Jones have in common with students in Penn State’s College of Ag Sciences? Turns out, more than you might think.

Last spring a group of six journeyed to the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent on a three-week adventure. They trekked through narrow courtyards and wandered around open deserts using dune buggies, mopeds and even camels in search of their Holy Grail: dirt.

These adventurers were students from the honors course Soils, Civilizations and Societies, a class offered only in the spring. “The purpose of the class was to grasp how the physical aspect of soil relates to how a society developed,” says Amy Stauffer, then a sophomore majoring in Agricultural Science. “We looked at how parts of the society either thrived or died. Middle Eastern culture is amazing, and applying the course objectives to the trip was an awesome learning experience.”

The first stop on this soils trip was in the Cappadocia region of central Turkey, where the class met with local farmers in small villages, wound their way through tun-nels below ancient cities and mingled with the locals.

In addition to the small farms, the students also stopped at two of the earliest places where civilization flourished, Ephesus and Troy. At both locations, the group found that because of poor soil conservation, the cities had to be abandoned. After leaving Turkey, students traveled to Jordan to explore its soils and civilizations. The students visited the ancient stone city of Petra, the Paleolithic ruins of ancient Jawa (site of one of the first human-made dams), Jerash and the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth.

They also camped out for one night in Jordan’s majestic Wadi Rum region. “Sleeping in the desert was absolutely amazing,” says Sandra Howland, a senior major-ing in Agricultural Science. “We watched the sunset and ate a fantastic meal cooked over a fire. There are no lights, so you can see the entire night sky—all the stars are visible.” The next morning, the group took a safari on camels back to the city.