From July 22 to August 1, a 6-person team from Tianjin University's School of Earth System Science joined more than 100 peers from 13 top Chinese universities, trekking across the rugged boundary between China's first and second topographic steps in Chongqing, Sichuan and Yunnan. This marked the school's first official participation in the long-running Southwest China University Joint Geography Field Practice.
Led by A/Prof. Ping Bo, Deputy Director of the SESS Experimental and Practical Teaching Center, the Tianjin University group traveled along the thematic route "Walking on the Edge of the Topographic Step", covering karst peak clusters, alpine valleys, plateau lake basins and other typical geomorphic units that textbook descriptions rarely capture in full. Unlike conventional single-university field trips, this joint practice set up cross-institutional observation groups, where SESS undergraduates worked side by side with students from other participating universities to measure stratigraphic sections, record vegetation succession gradients, and interview local residents about mountain ecological protection efforts.
For the five participating undergraduates, the 11-day expedition was far more than a standard field assignment. At the karst observation sites in Chongqing, they adjusted their pre-designed soil sampling protocols on-site after comparing notes with peers from Southwest University; in the Hengduan Mountain transect in Yunnan, they completed a group presentation on human-land coupling systems that won wide recognition from the joint practice's supervising faculty.
"This is not just a field exercise, but a chance for our students to see the full complexity of geography beyond lab data and classroom slides," Ping Bo noted. The school's first participation in the regional joint practice has built a solid platform for long-term practical education collaboration with top domestic geography departments, and will support SESS's ongoing efforts to cultivate field-oriented, problem-solving talents for earth system science research.
