In this unit, students work in small groups to collect and record data about soils using various soil testing and classification methods at a series of stations. The methods they use are relevant to the societal issue of their choice that involves soil. Through this process of testing, data collection, and interpretation, they develop the baseline soil content knowledge and skills necessary to create their own Soils, Systems, and Society Kit.

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The application of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) in the earth sciences has become commonplace. GNSS data can produce high-accuracy, high-resolution measurements in common reference frames. Static GNSS methods take advantage of long occupation times to resolve fine measurement and time-series data to capture events such as tectonic deformation, earthquakes, groundwater depletion, and slow-moving landforms. This unit focuses on design and field execution of simple static surveys, emphasizing the benefits and limitations of the technique. Students will learn which applications the technique is most applicable for as well as the standard data-processing techniques. Additionally, students advance their understanding of GNSS systems through interpretation of field data from static surveys and public data sets of continuous-operation stations. This unit prepares students to design and implement a survey of their own through hands-on instruction and demonstration of rapid-static or static techniques in a field setting.

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Note: Although the term GPS (Global Positioning System) is more commonly used in everyday language, it officially refers only to the USA's constellation of satellites. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) is a universal term that refers to all satellite navigation systems including those from the USA (GPS), Russia (GLONASS), European Union (Galileo), China (BeiDou), and others. In this module, we use the term GNSS to refer generically to the use of one or more satellite constellations to determine position.

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In this unit, student groups will use sensory data (scents and/or sounds) collected in the field to create maps of the sensory environment and relate their findings to larger environmental problems identified in their guiding questions and hypotheses. This unit is designed to build upon prior units in which students develop guiding questions and hypotheses, field data collection protocols, and field investigation plans. The field investigation will require a base map on which to record data and a final map on which to display data and characterize the study area and environmental impact of the mapped data. The base map will be derived from aerial imagery if the investigation site is outside. The base map will be derived from a building schematic or floor map if an interior location is mapped.
Class time will be devoted to developing maps on which students will display the data collected in the field. Students will use Google Earth or other online resources to obtain aerial (or other schematic) imagery of their study area. They may use an aerial image as a base map or they may draw their own maps based on the aerial imagery. If the site is indoors, a blueprint or floor plan can be the base map, or students can draw their own maps based on an existing image or schematic.
Sensory mapping allows students to identify scent plumes as they migrate away from source locations. Odor plumes and sounds are analogous to plumes of contaminants that migrate through groundwater, surface water, and air. In many instances, the presence of unusual odors is an indicator of migrating contaminants and can lead to sampling by environmental professionals (including geoscientists) to confirm and quantify contaminant migration through the environment. These maps serve as representations of the complex odor or sound systems in the students' chosen geographical areas.

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Unit 5 is the summative assessment for the module. This final exercise takes eight to ten hours. The exercise evaluates students' developed skills in survey design, execution of a geodetic survey, and simple data exploration and analysis. This summative assessment is written flexibly so that it can be applied to a variety of potential field sites and associated geoscience research questions. The unit has two parts, like most of the units in the module: Part 1, Geodetic Survey; and Part 2, Data Exploration. In addition, there is an optional Part 3, Data Processing, for students who have done Unit 4. This unit also has a number of prepared data sets for courses not able to collect field data.

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Open-ended, field, inquiry projects can be very useful in sedimentary geology courses to explore dynamic relationships in sedimentary systems. I have used this approach to allow students to "do" their own science in a small stream near our campus. These projects generally involve studying relationships between the nature of stream flow, stream dynamics, geometries of the channel, and characteristics and rates of movement of bedforms. The small-group inquiry project begins with students observing a section of the stream (located a couple miles from campus), followed by brainstorming questions about the features observed in the stream and on its bed, then to designing and implementing experiments to answer specific questions that they have formulated, and concluding with data analysis and student presentations of their research. Approximately a dozen steps comprise the complete inquiry approach.

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These assignments are adaptations of field labs to incorporate writing. For each field lab, students write a partial geologic report, consisting of a description (or "Structural Data") section, an interpretation section, and appropriate supporting figures (potentially including stereonets, field sketches, maps, cross-sections, etc.).
Handouts given at the beginning of lab list: the goals to be accomplished in the field (measurement of foliations and lineations, measurement of bedding around a fold, description of structures, field sketches, etc.),
the figures expected in the write-up (stereonets, field sketches, etc.),
a list of information to include in the description section, and a list of questions to address in the interpretation section. Depending on the field area, students may be given two or more competing models to test in the field or may be asked to relate descriptive analysis to kinematic or mechanical analysis. This adaptation can be used for field labs at all levels, from labs designed to review field techniques and identify basic types of secondary structures to labs that simulate research experience. This type of write-up improves student writing by giving students practice using terminology and describing spatial relationships, and improves critical thinking skills by requiring written interpretation of structural data.

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Wetlands provide an ideal field hydrology laboratory because the water table is so close to the land surface. Eight field exercises, in which students generate their own data, are presented that demonstrate surface-water, vadose-zone, and groundwater hydrology concepts. Standard field equipment and methods are used to conduct investigations including measuring stream discharge, estimating groundwater seepage to a stream and/or pond, preparing a topographic profile showing the water-table configuration, measuring infiltration rates and estimating constant infiltration capacity, measuring field-saturated hydraulic conductivity, estimating hydraulic conductivity from slug tests, and determining the direction, hydraulic gradient, and specific discharge of groundwater. These labs compliment lecture material commonly covered in a first semester hydrology course.

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What follows is an example of a three part exercise for undergraduate petrology students involving volcanic and shallow intrusive rocks in the Washburn Range, Yellowstone National Park. We will loosely follow Part 1, although Parts 2 (petrology) and 3 (geochemistry) are also included. The exercise is largely based on a recent study by Feeley et al. (2002), although on this trip we will only examine stratigrahpically high rocks on Mount Washburn proper; stratigraphically lower rocks to the southwest beneath Dunraven and Hedges Peaks are off-road and off-trail

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The identification of clay mineral assemblages in soils provides a unique opportunity to demonstrate how basic principles of petrology and geochemistry are applied to engineering design criteria in construction site preparation. Specifically, the problem investigates the conditions leading to the formation of smectite in soils and the resulting construction risk due to soil expansion. Students examine soils developed on igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks near Denver, Colorado. The field locations are areas of suburban growth and several have expansive soil problems. The 2-week exercise includes sample collection, description, and preparation, determining clay mineralogy by XRD, and measurement of Atterberg Plasticity Indices. This problem develops skills in X-ray diffraction analysis as applied to clay mineralogy, reinforces leacture material on the geochemistry of weathering, and demonstrates the role of petrologic characterization in site engineering.

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Through an adult-led field trip, students organized into investigation teams catalogue the incidence of plastic debris in different environments. They investigate these plastics according to their type, age, location and other characteristics that might indicate what potential they have for becoming part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Students collect qualitative and quantitative data that may be used to create a Google Earth layer as part of a separate activity that can be completed at a computer lab at school or as homework. The activity is designed as a step on the way to student's creation of their own GIS Google Earth layer. It is, however, possible for the field trip to be a useful learning experience unto itself that does not require this last GIS step.

The San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains provide an excellent setting for exploring the evolution and diversity of crystalline rocks in California. The oldest rock-forming events which can be explored in these ranges involved episodic Paleoproterozoic magmatism and orogenesis extending from 1.81 to 1.65 Ga. Rock units of this age are widespread both east and west of the San Andreas fault. This Paleoproterozoic tectonism was followed by intrusion of younger Mesoproterozoic anorogenic igneous rocks that are areally limited, but well exposed in the San Gabriel Mountains as 1.19 Ga gabbro, anorthosite, and syenite. Proterozoic igneous activity and tectonism in southwest North America was followed by rifting during the Neoproterozoic, which led to development of the Cordilleran geosynclinal belts. Belts of rocks within the geosyncline in southern California trend northeast-southwest, with deeper water rocks to the northwest, and Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks in the San Bernardino Mountains belong to the transition zone between the cratonal and deeper water miogeoclinal sequences. Passive margin sedimentation ended with initiation of arc magmatism oriented along a northwest to southeast trend in Late Permian time. A diverse group of Mesozoic plutons and dike swarms as young as Late Cretaceous in age characterize the crystalline terranes of both the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains, culminating in emplacement of large calc-alkalic intrusive suites in both ranges about 78 Ma.

The diversity of ages and types of crystalline rocks makes a field trip through either or both of these ranges a great opportunity to engage students in active learning while linking petrology and historical geology course content in a field context. Students can utilize rock identification skills learned in the laboratory, and with knowledge of available geochronologic data, can construct a more detailed geologic time scale for the region.

Here we will provide an example of a one-day trip to examine Proterozoic metamorphic and Mesozoic intrusive igneous rocks that are easily accessible in roadcuts and on short field traverses along National Forest roads. The trip is adapted from more detailed field guides and road logs for this region (principally Barth et al., 2001), with a focus on undergraduate learning.

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