Opportunities for field experiences are often presented as a primary reason that undergraduate students gravitate towards geosciences as a major field of study. What those students may not understand is that, for professional geoscientists, field experiences go beyond the freshman-level field trip, and students may overlook the processes of observation, data collection and analysis that are inherent to the science. The Department of Geosciences at Boise State has developed a set of sophomore field experience courses designed to "set the hook" into new majors and prepare them for field experiences in upper division coursework. These sophomore courses have been shown to build a strong cohort through shared experiences, increasing retention, and at the same time initiate students in basic field and lab methods within the context of geosciences. One field experience that couples student-directed data collection with data analysis is an introduction to dendrochronological methods. The activity takes place in lecture, field, and lab settings over a three-week period, and leads the students through fundamental concepts, field site selection and sample identification and core collection methodologies, tree-ring measurement and analysis. Data collection (i.e., increment coring) is fully hands on by small groups of students who work to identify and sample appropriate trees. Additional field observations made by students include describing site characteristics and recording tree characteristics (dbh and height). After collecting and mounting the cores, students work in pairs to date and measure ring widths and enter the data into a spreadsheet. Data analysis includes sharing and combining the measured series - by comparing individual series with the combined, full class series we illustrate the importance of sample size, and compare the concept of group response to individual response. Ultimately, students use the tree-ring datasets to test for correlation with various climate and physical datasets and write up their results and own interpretations. Through this experience, the students gather and process their own data, and learn that results in this context are not always as clean as is often the case in canned freshman science lab exercise.