University level activity on floodplain risks. Uses FEMA maps and SERC river geomorphology videos.

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How are rising sea levels already influencing different regions? This unit offers case study examples for a coastal developing country (Bangladesh), a major coastal urban area (southern California), and an island nation (Maldives). What are the anticipated consequences of additional sea-level rise this century in these different places? This introduction to the module is designed to prompt student consideration of the economic and social impacts of sea-level change. As a class, students conduct a stakeholder analysis for one or more of the case study regions in order to better understand how different segments of a society affect and will be affected by sea-level change.

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Online-adaptable: This exercise could be converted to online whole-class discussions and a breakout group activity. At least the whole-class portion would probably need to be done synchronously.

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Unit 1 introduces foundational concepts in geoscience, emergency management, and political science that are critical for developing a systems thinking approach and for achieving the learning objectives in the storm module. More specifically, within Unit 1, students acquire a vocabulary related to storm systems and risk, engage in practical exercises on event probability and frequency, and complete written activities and oral presentations that reinforce these concepts, using their own community and two case studies as examples. The activities include: a pre-and post-Unit survey on natural hazard risk, an optional concept map exercise to identify associations of risk in major storms, an exercise on probability and frequency of natural hazards in general and major storms in particular, an exercise using hazard vulnerability analysis (HVA) and the HVA's findings, and a synthesis assignment that requires analysis of an assigned hazard mitigation plan (HMP) and development of a proposal to improve mitigation plans.

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Students will identify and apply credible geologic and social science data sets to identify local hazards and vulnerable groups and structures, and assess risk for their community.

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How have mass-wasting events affected communities, and what lessons have we learned from these natural disasters that might help us mitigate future hazards? In this unit, students answer these questions by being introduced to the landscape and societal characteristics that contributed to loss of property and life during the 1970 Nevado HuascarÃn (Peru) and 2010 San Fratello (Sicily, Italy) events.

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

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In Unit 2, students apply and evaluate foundational concepts about storm hazards and risk in the context of two cases studies: Superstorm Sandy (2012) and the Storm of the Century (1993). Through different activities and assignments, students develop skills for finding, evaluating, and relating data to case studies and build an understanding of preparedness, response, and resilience. The activities include: an analysis of hazard mitigation plans for their local community, examination of storm-related geophysical processes in the context of societal risks, preparation of a press release for community preparedness, and a peer review and revision opportunity for the press releases. Instructors may also end this unit by having students revise their concept maps from Unit 1, applying lessons learned in Units 1 and 2.

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During Unit 2, students will learn about the causes of two past mass extinctions and discuss the controversies surrounding these causes and the evidence upon which the theories in the debates are based. Before class, students will be assigned to read one of a set of different articles about theories for the causes of the end-Cretaceous and the end-Permian mass extinction. During class, students will get in groups with others who read different articles to pool their knowledge about flood-basalt eruptions and catastrophic asteroid impacts. They will re-group to compare and contrast the two proposed causes of the end-Permian and end-Cretaceous mass extinctions and the mass extinctions themselves.

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What is the contribution of seawater thermal expansion to recent sea-level rise? In this unit, students create time-series graphs of global averaged sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) data spanning 1880 -- 2017 and conduct linear trend analysis to assess SST change during this period. Based on the calculated SST change, students calculate how much sea-level rise occurred during 1993 -- 2015 due to thermal expansion of the oceans. Students compare their thermal expansion calculated sea-level rise results to observed sea-level rise from radar altimetry and assess how much sea-level rise is attributable to thermal expansion.

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Online-ready: The exercise is electronic and could be done individually or in small online groups. Lecture is best done synchronously due to the technical nature. Discussion would be better that way too.

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Students will collect and analyze relevant social data on individual and community knowledge, risk perception and preparedness within their local social networks.

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Over the course of one week, students will apply and evaluate concepts in the context of their local community, culminating in the formulation and evaluation of Hazard Mitigation Plan recommendations presented in stakeholder position papers. These position papers, which will also serve as the summative assessment of the Major Storms and Community Resilience Module, will be presented and assessed during a Town Hall Meeting. In this role-playing activity, students apply and evaluate concepts in the context of assigned stakeholder positions from their local community. Over the course of the week, students formulate and evaluate Hazard Mitigation Plan recommendations for major storms, and then present those recommendations in a town hall-style meeting. These assignments demonstrate students' ability to develop strategies and recommendations to mitigate local community vulnerabilities to storms with specific emphasis on different sectors and/or stakeholders in that community. Instructors will assess student achievement of the learning goals through a formal oral presentation and a team policy position paper. As such, the culmination of Unit 3 in the Town Hall Meeting serves as the summative assessment for the Major Storms module.

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What is the contribution of melting ice sheets compared to other sources of sea-level rise? How much is the sea level projected to increase during the twenty-first century? In this unit students will use Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) ice-mass loss time series from Greenland and Antarctica to calculate sea-level rise due to the addition of freshwater inputs from melting ice sheets, and use Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) ice-velocity data to extrapolate which regions of the ice sheets are losing the greatest mass. Sea-level rise from melting ice sheets is then contrasted to the other dominant causes of sea-level rise, including thermal expansion, melting glaciers, and changes in land water storage. Lastly, students will extrapolate how much sea-level rise will occur by year 2100 based on recent observed rates of sea-level rise and compare these values to sea-level rise projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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Online-ready: The exercise is electronic and could be done individually or in small online groups. Lecture is best done synchronously due to the technical nature. Discussion would be better that way too.

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Students use Google Earth to observe two river systems and characterize changes in gradient from the headwaters to the mouth, and relate changes in those gradients to different rock types. At one location, they observe historical changes in the river and infer how sediment erosion and deposition can alter a stream channel. Students also observe some ways in which humans attempt to prevent bank erosion.

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Using a systems dynamics approach, students will work in groups to conceptualize and construct a model of the global carbon cycle considering five major Earth systems: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere. The models will draw on information from the pre-class activity and invoke system features such as boundaries, stocks, flows, and control variables. Using a scenario describing a global, catastrophic event, the students will consider how new conditions change the behavior of carbon cycling in their model world. Students will use the model to explain changes in environmental variables such as permafrost cover, atmospheric gases, and global temperature, as well as feedbacks within the system.

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Students will identify potential stakeholders and assess the importance of communication and interaction among these groups to make recommendations on how to define and develop prepared communities.

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Landslides can have profound societal consequences, such as did the slide that occurred near Oso, Washington in 2014. Forty-three people were killed and entire rural neighborhood was destroyed. In this unit, students consider the larger-scale tectonic and climatic setting for the landslide and subsequently use lidar and SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) hillshade images, topographic maps, and InSAR (interferometric synthetic aperture radar) to determine relationships between landscape characteristics and different types of mass-wasting events. They conclude by considering the societal costs of such a disaster and ways that communities in similar situations may mitigate their risk.

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Online-adaptable: The exercises in unit are completely digital and thus at a logistical level it can be switched to online fairly easily. However, due to the relative complexity of the data investigations and group discussions, there will still be a fair bit of instructor support needed and/or extended small group that should be arranged.

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Sea-level rise due to the melting of glaciers and ice sheets and ocean thermal expansion has significant societal and economic consequences. In this final unit, students prepare a summary of the impacts of sea level for relevant stakeholders. Students will integrate the stakeholder analysis in Unit 1 with the geodetic data (radar satellite altimetry, GRACE [Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment], InSAR, and GPS) of ice mass loss and sea-level rise from Units 2 -- 4 in their analysis. Unit 5 is the summative assessment for the module.

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Online-ready: The exercise is a final project that can be done remotely, individually or in small online groups.

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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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This unit is the module's capstone project: developing a conceptual model of the climatic and societal effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurring in modern times. Through independent research and in-class collaboration, students explore the climatic and societal effects of past volcanic eruption events. Students are then introduced to the large Toba eruption event, review concept maps, concept sketches, and system diagrams, and are are given examples and guidelines for conceptual model design. Students complete their written summary outside of class.

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Picture of urban flooding

Provenance: Timothy Swinson https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trapped_woman_on_a_car_roof_during_flash_flooding_in_Toowoomba_2.jpg
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Unit 8 covers the basics of hydroclimatic extreme events with a focus on floods and droughts. Topics include introduction to floods and droughts, impact of urbanization on extremes, how to understand and predict extremes, how to tackle them (management strategies), and elements of urban climate resilience. The teaching strategy is designed with short and divided lectures filled with discussion questions and a group activity. Students will be working with time series flow data for statistical analysis of extreme events.

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