This problem set is used as a homework assignment to assess students' understanding of the properties of light. Students are asked to calculate velocity through media with different index of refractions, wavelengths, frequencies, and reflection/refraction behaviors.

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The goal of this lab session is to introduce you to the spindle stage and its possible uses in an undergraduate mineralogy lab. A spindle stage is a one-axis rotation device that mounts on a polarizing microscope and is used to aid in the measurement of optical properties of single crystals. At the undergraduate level, it can be used to identify minerals and to demonstrate the relationships among grain shape, retardation, and interference figures. A natural extension of these uses is undergraduate research on the optical properties of minerals.

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Click to watch Alain Plattner discuss his activity or watch the full webinar.We use MATLAB functions available from https://github.com/NSGeophysics/Seism-O to simulate the superimposition of different seismic waves recorded in a simple near-surface geophysics setting. The choice of the geophone layout influences how easy it is to discern the different wave types, which is crucial for the success of a near-surface seismics survey. Students learn which parameters they should try to estimate before the survey, why these parameters are crucial, and how they influence the setup of the survey.

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This course introduces the parallel evolution of life and the environment. Life processes are influenced by chemical and physical processes in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and the solid earth. In turn, life can influence chemical and physical processes on our planet. This course explores the concept of life as a geological agent and examines the interaction between biology and the earth system during the roughly 4 billion years since life first appeared.

In this exercise, students relate large-scale features on Earth's surface to lithospheric plates, the underlying asthenosphere, earthquakes, and volcanoes. After creating a cross section showing elevation using GeoMapApp, students add additional features by hand.

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How do geologic, hydrologic, biologic, and built-landscape features manifest themselves on maps? In this unit, students will use topographic maps, hillshade maps, and aerial imagery to learn to recognize a variety of landscape features and subsequently identify as many of these features as they can on a map of a new study area. They will also construct a topographic profile from their map data and use their profiles to understand the concepts of slope, aspect, and relief and how these landscape characteristics are important in hazard assessment and land-use planning.

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Online-adaptable: Part 1 (lecture) and Part 3 (individual or small-group exercise) are particularly straight forward to adapt to online. The landscape scavenger hunt exercise, Part 2, is typically done with printed maps but can be successfully adapted to online by having synchronous groups of students work together to annotate digital map files using: 1) PDF annotation tools in Adobe or 2) putting the map images into a Google Slides file and using the scribble tool. Google Earth files are also provided as an additional option.

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This is a short exercise aimed at evaluating whether students understand how to interpret the Ab-An phase diagram. If students know what is going on, it takes about 10 minutes to complete. This active learning exercise makes a good break from lecture. It is best done as a group activity.

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Students will research two types of salt deposits: solar salt (e.g., facilities in Bahamas) and rock salt (e.g., Heber City, Utah). Students will be able to compare and contrast the two types of salt deposits by creating a concept map.

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Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module/Geology of National Parks course. Students use a rating curve to determine discharge at various stage heights.

Understanding the relationship between the outcrop pattern and the 3-D geometry of rock bodies is a challenge for students, especially those with low spatial ability. While memorization of learning aids, such as the "rule of V's" can help students interpret structure, it doesn't really help them understand the interaction between topography and rock bodies, and thereby be freed of having to rely on memory aids.

Google Earth offers the ability to view topography in 3D, and in areas of good exposure, the interaction between topography and rock bodies can be clearly visualized by manipulating the viewer's perspective. Through this user interaction, a much clearer understanding of how outcrop patterns related to rock structure can be gained.

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The stage is set for this exercise with a class period introducing semi-brittle deformation: What does it look like? How does it happen? Over what time/length scales does it occur? Distributing candy bars with nuts (brittle) and caramel (ductile) provides a tasty sense of semi-brittle deformation while chewing. The lab is done ideally in groups of 3-4 with each group responsible for performing experiments on one apparatus (distributed shear, localized shear, and pressure cell). Each experiment (described in the attached file) has setup, running, and cleanup phases. During the running phase, students in other groups are encouraged to view key moments in the experiment (e.g., propagation of fractures, modifying pore fluid pressure, seismic events). When the lab is completed, groups are scrambled so each group contains at least one student from each experiment. Students in newly formed groups collaborate to produce a lab report, containing abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections.

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This is a field guide with road log to the classic Barrovian sequence in Dutchess County, New York. The field trip starts near Poughkeepsie, NY, and ends near the Connecticut border. The guide will lead you to key outcrops starting at the protolith, with one stop each in the chlorite, biotite, garnet, lower staurolite, upper staurolite, kyanite, sillimanite, and silimanite-kspar zones in the regionally metamorphosed pelitic sequence. Files include the road log with stop locations and descriptions, a regional map, and Google Earth .kmz file.

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Students analyze the interplay between science and politics on the issue of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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A classroom/lab activity using the Paleobiology Database to produce and interpret diversity curves for various groups of important and popular extinct animals, such as trilobites, ammonites, and dinosaurs. Activity helps students appreciate ancient life, geological time, and the important of mass extinctions in shaping the history of life, and by extension the implications of current extinctions.
Outcomes:

Research how extinct animals lived, what they looked like, when they lived, and when they went extinct.
Observe the geological timescale, name three geological eras, and use them to understand geological time.
Name five major mass extinctions and relate them to the eras in which they occurred.
Use the Paleobiology Database to produce diversity curves for an important group of extinct animals.
Interpret graphs of diversity curves to understand the importance of mass extinctions in the history of life.
(Optional) Communicate results of study to peers in class. In the process, synthesize information on multiple extinct animal groups to better appreciate the importance of extinctions in earth history.

When students consider the causes of shoreline erosion they often assume waves are the controlling process. Although they are correct there are other variables to consider. This assignment uses the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) developed by the USGS to evaluate multiple factors that affect shoreline stability. The two sites used in this example- Virginia and Maine, were deliberately chosen because the wave height, i.e. wave energy, is almost the same but the erosion rates are different. Maine is more stable (lower CVI) than Virginia (high CVI), but waves are not the reason the stability of these two shorelines differ. This forces students to consider other variables such as underlying geology and sea level rise.

This problem set challenges students to interpret a simplified temperature-composition phase diagram for the system enstatite (Mg2Si2O6) - diopside (CaMgSi2O6), which are common constituents of peridotites, gabbros, and basalts. Students are provided with the phase diagram and asked to answer 13 questions about it.

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This activity is a guided investigation into the process of plate tectonics and resulting features. It's a look at the resulting effects which we see as volcanoes, earthquakes, and mountains.

In this video from Nature, geological detectives use ancient diamonds to learn more about Earth's inner layers.

Students gesture the orientations of cross-bedded sandstones, and in particular the relationship between a single cross bed and the bed sets. They do this for photos of undeformed and deformed cross-bedding.

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X-ray diffraction is a quick and valuable tool for identifying minerals. Minerals are an integral portion of our everyday life, in addition to composing our planet! They help bring electricity into our homes and remove our bathtub rings. In this lab, students analyze the X-ray diffraction patterns of three household cleansers, Ajax, White Magic, and Soft Scrub, in order to identify the abrasive minerals in each.

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