Jigsaw version: To prepare, students do background reading on landslides and rock avalanches and read the introductory portion of Hermanns and Strecker's 1999 article on rock avalanches in Argentina. In class, students receive data (assembled from figures in the article) on bedrock geology and physiography, as well as stereonets showing orientations of prominent joint sets, bedding, and foliations in the bedrock. Their task is to answer the question of why gigantic rock avalanches occur is some places but not others in this part of Argentina. Each student receives one of four possible data sets and works with a team to analyze the data and solve the problem for the team's area. Each team member must then individually explain his/her analysis to a group of three other students, one from each of the other teams, and the group then compares the four locations for similarities and differences. The activity gives students practice in interpreting geologic maps, using stereonets, and peer teaching. The activity also connects structural geology to another geoscience discipline.Short case example version: This is an abbreviated version of the jigsaw activity described above and focuses on only one of the rock avalanche areas.

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This lab and demonstration activity involves students conducting chemical reaction experiments to determine the chemical reaction type and writing balanced equations.

In this activity, students learn about volcanism in Yellowstone National Park, focusing on its history of eruption, recent seismicity, hydrothermal events, and ground deformation. They learn how scientists monitor volcanoes (using Mount St. Helens as an example) and then apply that as an open-ended problem to Yellowstone; their problem is to identify a site for a research station.

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In this Jigsaw activity, groups of four students are tasked with identifying 20 different minerals (or rocks).

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Before engaging in lessons, students attempt to draw a diagram of a nitrogen cycle and add as many components as they can. This allows them to self-assess (and the teacher to assess) what they know about the nitrogen cycle.

Students research some of the nitrogen cycle components online at various websites or read printouts from websites provided by the teacher. They choose three or four facts of interest about their component and report to the rest of the class.

Each small group of students is given a set of materials including 20 objects, 20 picture-cards, 20 nitrogen cycle component explanation cards, 20 title cards for each nitrogen cycle component, heading cards for different environments such as the atmosphere, soil, water, etc., and many small arrows. The students work together to pair each object with its corresponding title card, description card, and picture card. Then these are all arranged to form a possible nitrogen cycle with various components clustered around heading cards and arrows used to show movement of nitrogen from one object to another.

Students then write humorous (limerick, couplet) poems or more serious poems (haiku) or structured poems (cinquain, diamante) to tell several facts about a component of the nitrogen cycle. They share their poems with the class.
Students may also engage in experiments with nitrogen fertilizer.

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An exercise designed to facilitate understanding of the impacts of price controls on market outcomes, with a follow up exercise covering these and related concepts.

The activity presents a Think-Pair-Share analysis of a metal detector including a simulation.

An exercise designed to facilitate understanding of supply and demand shifts as well as impacts on market outcomes with follow up exercises covering these and related concepts.

This cooperative learning activity helps students gain a deeper understanding of the three functions of money and provides practice applying those ideas to real-life items.

This is a classroom lab investigation where students use the story of the three bears to discover inadequacies in the story and discover how to make them correct. Convection, conduction and radiation are involved.

To Drill or Not to Drill is a multidisciplinary problem based learning exercise, which intends to increase students' knowledge of a variety of topics through a real world environmental topic. In addition, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) impacts students either directly (depending on the age level) or indirectly (through their parents) as gas prices soar to record high levels.

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Students reenact a public hearing to determine how to manage a deer herd that is overpopulated.

Using a jigsaw approach, students investigate biogeochemical transformations of water as it moves through the hydrologic cycle. In the first phase, student groups are given a schematic representation of the hydrologic cycle with representative concentrations of a single variable (nitrate, silica, pH and conductivity) provided for oceans, precipitation, streams, and shallow and deep groundwater. After each group has achieved a satisfactory explanation of its own variable, students are recombined to explain and compare the processes that control each variable, and to look for common themes (e.g., weathering reactions in subsurface increase conductivity, silica and pH). The resulting conceptual framework facilitates use of water-quality variables as tracers to interpret runoff processes and stream-flow sources.

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College Algebra or Liberal Arts math students are presented with a ConcepTest, a Question of the Day and a write-pair-share activity involving U.S. population growth. The results are quite revealing and show that while students may have learned how to perform the necessary calculations, their conceptual understanding concerning exponential growth may remain faulty. Student knowledge (or lack thereof) of the size of our population and its annual growth rate may also be surprising.

A jigsaw approach encourages collaboration, co-operation, and avoids a lecture-based approach to delivering content. Each student becomes an expert and also must rely on others to complete their understanding. Students recognize the importance of each individual process, and how each process fits into the rather complex integrated carbon cycle. Additional processes can be added for advanced classes including long-term processes such as sedimentation and burial in rocks.

Nuts and Bolts;
There are five fundamental processes involved in the short-term terrestrial organic carbon cycle: photosynthesis, respiration, feeding, death, and decomposition. The objective of this exercise is to have each student become an expert in one of these five processes, and then explain to others in their small group the essentials of this process.

Before class, each student is asked to research and fully understand one aspect of the carbon cycle. They write one to two pages fully describing this process, including answering the following questions:

- Where does this process occur in the biosphere and geosphere?
- What is the correct chemical equation to describe the process?
- What is the rate of the process, with correct units?
- What is the residence time of carbon in the reservoir that leads to this process?
- How does this process affect or control atmospheric CO2?

In class, the now expert students first consult with other classmates who have studied the same process to strengthen and deepen their understanding. They then form teams of five students and explain to other students their particular process. In exchange, other students explain additional aspects of the carbon cycle. Finally, one or two groups presents to the entire class, with class discussion. At the end, all students develop a comprehensive understanding of the integrated organic C cycle.

Students in an introductory macroeconomics course practice applying their knowledge of monetary and fiscal policy to specific economic scenarios. During multiple rounds of problem solving facilitated by this send-a-problem, students identify how policy changes can be used in reaction to specific economic conditions or events. They also evaluate such policy changes in terms of resultant impacts on equilibrium conditions.

The focus on soil in this unit is accomplished by browsing and reading or browsing (in some detail) information from nine websites as well as a book chapter. This effort will help students to understand issues relating to soil erosion, the state factors of soil formation, methods of soil description and classification in the field, soil orders, soil surveys and threats to soil. Questions are posed that require written responses and the in-class activity involves a web-based soil survey using the Natural Resources Conservation Service Web Soil Survey. This activity can be accomplished individually or by groups and should involve a short report of findings.

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The term "Earth system science" is typically used to describe the science (especially quantitative modeling) of the interactions between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and cryosphere, and biosphere---the addition of lithosphere to that list provides all of the main generalized components ("spheres") of the Critical Zone.
In this lesson, students will consider basic concepts of system science (studying complex systems), specifically as it can be applied to Critical Zone science. Students will engage in developing a qualitative systems model graphic of the Critical Zone. The knowledge gained here will be applied later in the semester to more in-depth systems thinking of the Critical Zone.

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In this opening unit, students develop the societal context for understanding earthquake hazards using as a case study the 2011 Tohoku, Japan, earthquake. It starts with a short homework "scavenger hunt" in which students find a compelling video and information about the earthquake. In class, they share some of what they have found and then engage in a series of think-pair-share exercises to investigate both the societal and scientific data about the earthquake.

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Online-ready: This opening class discussion about earthquakes and societal impacts could easily be converted to an online discussion format.

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This unit is designed to engage students by introducing them to patterns in recent climate and investigating possible reasons for recent changes. Students work in small groups to plot and analyze real-world temperature data covering a decade, and use that information to make predictions about future climatic trends. Whole-class discussions illustrate the differences between short- and long-term trends. Students also analyze graphs of solar irradiance to begin to determine reasons for the observed increase in temperature, setting the stage for Unit 2, which examines the role of the atmosphere in controlling Earth's surface temperature.

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