This activity is a Google Slide playlist that will introduce students to microbes that can be found in deep sea sediments, and what roles they play in their environment. This playlist is suitable for use in remote or in-person instruction and can easily be added to a Learning Management System.

Provenance: Molly Ludwick, Kings Mountain Middle School
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

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Describing rock outcrops and hand specimens

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North American ecosystems have fundamentally changed over the late Pleistocene and Holocene; from a system dominated by mammoths, to bison, to domestic livestock. Given the very different body size and herd formation of these 'ecosystem engineers', it is likely that animals influence soil structure, water tables, vegetation and other animals in the ecosystems. What has been the ecological influence of the continued 'downsizing' of the largest animals in the ecosystem?

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Using stereonets to find rotation axes of tilted planes. Paleomagnetic vectors used as indicators of rotations of dikes and planes.

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This activity explores the environmental variables that influence wind erosion.

Key words: aeolian, fluid threshold, impact threshold,sedeiment entrainment and transport, particle size analysis

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Students use aerial photography combined with field observation to interpret the geology of a megascopic anticline-syncline pair exposed in the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas. This project focuses on the integration of remotely-sensed data with direct observation to develop and test hypotheses regarding the geology and structure of a well-defined field area. Students construct a geological map and cross-section that synthesize their observations and illustrate the geology of the field area.

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This contemplative practice inquires into the complex web of interdependencies linking global climate change, the War on Terror, Afghan poppy production, opiate addiction, and food security through the lens of systems theory. The exercise challenges students to consider these linkages not only conceptually but also somatically and emotionally.

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Phase 1: Definition of Projects and Research Teams (Homework +1 Class)

Each student is assigned the task of proposing a site to investigate within the city and the surrounding region. Students are encouraged to discuss the assignment with community members for suggestions and inspiration. Each student will produce an easel-size poster of their proposal highlighting the following:


Site location;

Reasons for selecting this site;

Potential interest to the community;

Potential logistical problems associated with the proposed site/project.

Posters will be hung in a gallery-walk format, and each student will mark the location of their proposed study site on the classroom map of New York City. The class is given time to read and comment on each of their peers' proposals, after which the instructor will lead a class discussion of the interests, merits, and obstacles associated with each proposal, with the goal of having the class settle on the set of projects on which to move forward.
Students will define groups of 2 to 4 students per project. If more than 4 students are interested in the same site, then multiple groups may develop parallel projects.

Phase 2: Data Collection and Analysis (5 weeks)

In consultation with the instructor, teams develop and implement a sampling protocol, including the documentation of terrain, human activity, and weather conditions (wind speed and direction) at the time of collection. Sample stations and prevailing wind direction are plotted on Google Earth to determine likely sources of particulates. Using binocular microscopes students document size distribution, form, color, and abundance of particulates. This data is analyzed using statistical functions in Excel. Teams use SEM-EDS analysis to determine the composition of particles, and more fully describe their form. Teams submit weekly progress reports, including personal work reports for each team member.

Phase 3: Communication of Results (1 Week)

Teams submit to their instructor a formal laboratory report: Purpose, Equipment, Method, Data Tabulation, Data Analysis, and Conclusions.
Teams prepare an oral presentation, or visual information campaign, targeted at an audience of their choice (e.g., neighbors, church group, community activist group, college administration) using discourse appropriate to that audience. Teams present in an in-class dress-rehearsal prior to their formal presentation. Teams invite members of their desired audience to the presentation (official invitations sent). On the last day of class, the instructor leads a debriefing and critique of the presentations, highlighting results and effective communication techniques.

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This online set of activities help students learn properties of ocean waves, wind-wave relationships and properties of tsunamis.

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In this two-part activity, students/participants first:
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Complete a Hazard Inventory for their city or area of interest in the event of a magnitude 7 or larger earthquake and tsunami.
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Identify what critical structures and infrastructure will be affected.
Then:
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Write a summary statement assessing strengths and vulnerabilities of essential services or infrastructure.
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Propose actions for mitigating vulnerabilities.
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Create an Action Plan to address identified needs.

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This activity introduces students to high precision GPS as it is used in geoscience research. Students build "gumdrop" GPS units and study data from three Alaska GPS stations from the Plate Boundary Observatory network. They learn how Alaska's south central region is "locked and loading" as the Pacific Plate pushes into North America and builds up energy that will be released in the future in other earthquakes such as the 1964 Alaska earthquake.

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This illustrated guide to Albian (Cretaceous) fossils provides an extensive photo collection of fossils from the Anglo-Parisian basin. Additional information, high resolution photos and illustrations can be accessed by clicking the fossil icons located on the globe, the time scale or along the top of the page. Although the site is written in French, a non-French-speaking visitor will find this page easy to navigate and the photos well worth the visit. Fauna featured on this site include ammonites, nautiloids, belemnites, gastropods, crusteceans, echinoderms, marine vertebrates and corals.

The Algae-in-a-Bottle Experiment provides an engaging and flexible high-impact teaching tool for helping students to know, understand, and apply a number of concepts related to the biology and ecology of aquatic plants and their environments.

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This activity follows a discussion in lecture about how to recognize various types of glacial landforms created through both erosional and depositional processes. It gives students practive in reading maps, interpreting landforms and synthesizing various types of landscapes.
Designed for a geomorphology course
Has minimal/no quantitative component

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Road deicers raise several environmental and cost concerns. In this activity students consider alternatives while investigating colligative properties.

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This is a research project for an Environmental Geology class, in which each student selects or is assigned a type of alternative energy to investigate. The project culminates in a 10-15 minute class presentation with accompanying written abstract.

Alternative futures studies are a valuable yet resource-intensive way in which environmental scientists try to conduct informed debates about policies for specific geographic regions. These studies require modeling what the future would look like if different stakeholder groups had their way. The modeling is carried out by applying historical trend data to future projections that are rooted in the preferences of the different groups. Alternative future studies can be controversial due to the limitations of modeling and to the extent to which the models represent fully the different possible scenarios. Yet, they can be especially valuable for decision making about which areas in the region would be most appropriate and most acceptable for the applications of different policies such as development and restoration. Through a series of hands-on classroom activities that are the culmination of a variety of field trips, case studies, and analyses of GIS data about river systems and river restoration options, the students build deep understanding about what alternative futures studies entail and what are the applications of such studies to specific rivers in the Puget Sound area.

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Students will learn how to perform basic skills using a Garmin GPS unit; mark waypoints, navigate to a waypoint, use the compass and 'go to' functions to estimate distance to a pre-programmed point, change GPS data to find hidden locations. Students will work in teams and help each other as they learn new GPS skills and gain a working understanding of georeferenced data, using clues and team work to solve problems, and how objects are oriented in space.

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This problem illustrates how numerical theories are developed, how we might test this theory with an analog model, and how numerical models are constructed and the limitations of numerical modeling.

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This lab activity is designed for science students in an introductory climatology course. Upon successful completion of the activity, students will have demonstrated an ability to:

Independently navigate and download climate data from online data libraries.
Work with different file types (NetCDF and CSV).
Write appropriate MATLAB code to read and manipulate climate data, and create plots (time series and maps) as instructed.
Extract meaningful information from large 3-dimensional datasets.
Understand and apply fundamental climatology concepts, such as:

Climate statistics (temporal and spatial mean and anomaly; trends; baselines)
Ice-albedo feedback resulting in disproportionate sensitivity to climate change in polar regions

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