Engaging with the (un)familiar: field teaching in a multi-campus teaching environment

Field trips have long been central to geography, but have been subject to assessment of the role of the 'field' in teaching. At the same time, academics face barriers to running field trips. Distance education and enhanced educational access for non-metropolitan students represented such an obstacle at an Australian university. These obstacles were taken as an opportunity to draw on the regional nature of the students and staff to enhance teaching goals, run critically informed field trips by and manage academic workloads. We evaluate the field trips by conducting surveys and interviews with students and tutors, and as an example of innovation within constraints.