Mapping Memory: EOU students use ground-penetrating radar to preserve Lower Cove Cemetery

Mapping Memory: EOU students use ground-penetrating radar to preserve Lower Cove Cemetery

LA GRANDE, Ore. — Teaching for the future starts by honoring the past. On the hillside at the Lower Cove Cemetery, Megan McGinness and her class of EOU students steer a ground-penetrating radar over the ground, tracing a pioneer cemetery so every resting place is remembered.

Eleven Eastern Oregon University students set out across Lower Cove Cemetery, under a perfectly blue autumn sky, a small cart in tow. Inside is ground-penetrating radar (GPR), a noninvasive tool that sends pulses into the soil and records reflections from what lies below. The goal is both practical and profound: help caretakers of the pioneer cemetery, still in use today, locate unmarked or deteriorated graves so future burials can proceed respectfully and accurately.

Leading the project is archaeology professor Megan McGinness, who says the day in the field transforms what students learn in lectures into a lived, career-shaping experience.

“I’ve tried to teach excavation methods in class, but it hits so differently when they can actually get their hands on the tools and physically do the work,” McGinness said. “The application is so much more meaningful than just seeing it on a screen.”

The class will return with an even larger team, 13 students, to complete a full grid of the cemetery. Working in pairs, students establish reference points, pace out survey lanes, collect GPR profiles, and log observations that will later be developed into a subsurface map. Along the way, they practice the habits that make real-world research possible: communication, careful note-taking, ethical decision-making, and a respect for the people and histories beneath their feet.

Sophomore Ali Abbott, who is minoring in anthropology, says that being on site brings home the community impact of the work.

“It’s going to help people’s future… planning and understanding of where loved ones were,” Abbott said. “And [it’s] helping Cove natives know where their history lies… It’s interesting. It’s really cool to be able to see where people are in the ground.”

McGinness remembers feeling the same spark as an undergraduate. “I was in a class like this and realized, ‘You can actually do this for a job?’” she said with a laugh. “There’s a lot more to it than standing outside and looking at the ground, but showing students that science can be hands-on, and that it serves people, is the point.”

Respect, accuracy, and service

Because many markers at the cemetery have deteriorated or disappeared, and because the site remains active, GPR offers a respectful way to confirm burial locations without disturbing the ground. The students’ survey will help cemetery stewards plan new interments while honoring those already at rest. For students, the work underscores that archaeology is as much about care as it is about discovery.

“One student said, ‘We get to do this? This is half our class credit?” McGinness said. “Yes—and it’s the half they’ll remember. For many, it’s their first time doing this kind of work, and it’s an experience you rarely get otherwise.”

By the term’s end, students will have collected and interpreted data, communicated their findings, and reflected on what it means to apply science in the service of people. That is what EOU means by student success and transformational education.