This activity is for students to work in teams (2012) or individually (2013) to develop a project (such as a physical or numerical model), survey based research, case study, technical briefs on a remediation technology, etc. of the students' choice, based on their understanding of and interest in the subjects covered in the class. This is used in the GL 199 Hydrogeology course, which is offered through the Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences at Norwich University. This is an experimental course that has not made it to the course catalogue as yet. It is currently offered to students majoring in Geology, with an acknowledgement that a course in hydrogeology is a desirable component of a Geology curriculum. Environmental Science students are encouraged to take it to deepen their understanding of subsurface processes. This course is considered a science elective for Civil and Environmental Engineering majors, and greatly complements the Hydrology, and Soils and Materials classes that are a part of the regular CE&E curriculum. Students from freshmen through seniors across these three majors are accepted into the course.
With a cross section of majors and academic years in the class, it was determined that a project that has students thinking about a topic of their choice and developing fundamental research and collaboration skills is critical to meeting common workplace demands.

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This course focuses on the practical applications of the continuum concept for deformation of solids and fluids, emphasizing force balance. Topics include stress tensor, infinitesimal and finite strain, and rotation tensors. Constitutive relations applicable to geological materials, including elastic, viscous, brittle, and plastic deformation are studied.

This 15-question problem set challenges students to determine the point group Hermann-Mauguin symbol and crystal system for each crystal stereogram.

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This activity from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific asks students to compress all of time (from the Big Bang until now) into one year.
First, they have to pick major events (younger students can be given them) - this can lead to lively discussion! You can certainly be adaptable here.
Second, the best thing to do is have the students guess where each event should be on the Cosmic Calendar.
Third, have them look up or be given the actual time period when the event occurred.
Fourth, have them calculate (or be given) the "date" on the Cosmic Calendar.
Fifth, discuss! Debate! Reflect!

Files cannot be uploaded as they are copyrighted but they are easily found and freely available.
Authors: Therese Puyau Blanchard, Andrew Fraknoi, and the staff of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
URL: http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/astro/act2/H2_Cosmic_Calendar.pdf

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A fluid flowing from an upper beaker into a lower beaker (shampoo in this case) behaves mathematically identically to radioactive decay, mimicking the exponential decay process, dependent on the amount of fluid in the upper beaker (representing the amount of parent isotopes) and the size of the hole in the beaker (representing the decay constant). Students measure the fluid depth with time for several "runs" with varied conditions, then graph their results, create decay equations, manipulate these equations and use them to "date" another experiment. They then apply their new understanding to make predictions regarding complications involved in the decay process and its use in dating (such as daughter loss).

Developed by Lily Claiborne and Calvin Miller.

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Students examine and analyze data sets related to climatic variations on annual, decadal, centurial, millenial, and longer time scales.

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The software package known as SHAPE (Shape Software 521 Hidden Valley Road, Kingsport, TN 37663) provides an excellent method for accurately drawing crystals. The following three boxes describe the basic steps involved in using SHAPE. Refer to these instructions when completing the exercises.

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Students examine images of brachiopods, mollusks, and coquinas. They identify, visualize, and sketch slices through a variety of shelly organisms, then apply what they've learned to identify fossils in several samples of coquina.

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This activity is a investigation where students observe soil and rocks, record their similarities and differences, interpret their findings, and are guided to develop a new investigable question.

Average inquiry level: Guided inquiry
Students working in groups will examine and discuss earthquakes, volcanoes, topography, faults, and seafloor ages and use those features to identify the boundaries of tectonic plates and specific features and processes associated with specific types of plate boundaries. This lab is designed for face-to-face instruction.

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The Earth's Interior worksheet involves the layers of the Earth and is meant to help students: 1) Draw the layers of the Earth true-to-scale (on an image with a scale bar), and 2) Grasp the size of the Earth by starting at a somewhat familiar scale (the upper 40km of the crust) and progressively adding layers and increasing the scale to the radius of the Earth (~6,400km). Moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar has been shown to be an effective strategy to understand large magnitudes (Resnick, Shipley, Newcombe, Massey, & Wills, 2012).

Starting at the surface, the student adds layers of the earth as the scale increases (40km, 400km, 700km, 3,000km, and 6,400km). The layers include the base of continental crust, upper mantle, transition zone, lower mantle, and the outer core, as well as drawing the height of a building at the surface to help gain perspective as the scale changes. Students also complete 3 multiple choice questions at the end of the worksheet to solidify and focus on goals and important concepts.

This worksheet uses the sketch-understanding program with built-in tutor: CogSketch. Therefore, students, instructors, and/or institution computer labs need to download the program from the CogSketch website: http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/software/cogsketch/. At any point during the worksheet, students can click the FEEDBACK button and their sketch is compared to the solution sketch. The built-in tutor identifies any discrepancies and reports pre-written feedback to help the student correct their sketch until they are done with the activity. Once worksheets are emailed to the instructor, worksheets can be batch graded and easily evaluated. This program allows instructors to assign sketching activities that require very little time commitment. Instead, the built-in tutor provides feedback whenever the student requests, without the presence of the instructor. More information on using the program and the activity is in the Instructor's Notes.

We have developed approximately two dozen introductory geoscience worksheets using this program. Each worksheet has a background image and instructions for a sketching task. You can find additional worksheets by searching for "CogSketch" using the search box at the top of this page. We expect to have uploaded all of them by the end of the summer of 2016.

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This activity is a field investigation where students go out to a water source and observe erosion that has taken place.

This Ology website focuses on Planet Earth. It includes activities, things to make, quizzes, interviews with working scientists, and more to help kids learn about the Earth.

A field investigation to the Mawikwe Bay Sea Caves of northern Wisconsin along Lake Superior in the winter. Students will investigate deposition of sedimentary rocks and weathering of the rocks to produce sea caves.

This problem set challenges students to determine the chemical classification of minerals based on their chemical formula (provided). For oxygen-bearing minerals, students must also provide the valences of the various cations.

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This lab helps students link concepts about how rocks form with observations about how rocks look. It is designed to help them learn rock classification in a more connected manner than is usual.

Think science has all the answers? Think again. This course will use real, authentic data to explore and investigate modern controversies in Earth Sciences. Use tide gauge records to understand how countries around the world attempt to protect themselves from tsunami events. Process seismic data to predict earthquake recurrence in the New Madrid seismic zone, right here in the breadbasket of the US. Sort through the millions of years of the geologic timeline to shed some light on what actually did, and did not, kill the dinosaurs. Finally, use global atmospheric data to understand how misrepresentation of data can be used to paint a distorted view of past, present, and future climate.

This project or multi-lab activity is designed to teach students about modeling landscape change caused by rivers over large time and spatial scales (e.g., the incision of Grand Canyon). Basic working knowledge of geomorphology of rivers is assumed but Matlab experience is not, so students will both build on Matlab ability and on how rivers can change as controlling variables are changed like uplift rate and the ability of rock to resist erosion. This is built on a 1-D stream power model-derived numerical code, where several variations in activities are available for exploration where structure and scaffolding decreases with increasing difficulty through the series. The detailed instructional write-up and all matlab scripts needed are here: Files for River profile modeling (Zip Archive 40kB Oct17 16)

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In this problem set, students are given space group symmetry diagrams for primitive (P) orthorhombic space groups. For each diagram they must write down the symmetry axis (either 2 or 21) that is parallel to each major axis, and give the symmetry plane (a, b, c, n, or m) that is normal (perpendicular)to each. They must also give the simplified Hermann-Mauguin symbol for the space group.

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This exercise is designed to help students understand relationships among external morphology of crystals (their shape and faces), internal structure (unit cell shape, edge measurements, and volume), Hermann-Mauguin notation for the 32 crystal classes, and Miller Indices of forms and faces.

The example and four crystal measurement problems have been drawn using the computer program SHAPE (see both Brock and Velbel, this volume). Both a single drawing and stereo pair are given for each problem. The stereo pair drawings can be used with the normal stereoscope used to read air photographs. The interfacial angles were calculated by the SHAPE program. If you have access to SHAPE you can design other crystal problems or have students generate the crystal drawing on the computer and then make the calculations ask for in this exercise.

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