Share an Activity

We have created a collection of introductory teaching materials (opens in a new window) that highlights effective pedagogy in introductory courses. From the materials that you provide below, we will create a web page describing your activity. Please complete all fields. You are encouraged to upload files to accompany your example.

You retain all rights to your contributed work and are responsible for referencing other people's work and for obtaining permission to use any copyrighted material within your contribution. By contributing your work to this web site, you give On the Cutting Edge a license for non-commercial distribution of the material, provided that we attribute the material to you. View our terms of use (opens in a new window) for more details about this kind of Creative Commons license. (opens in a new window)

Note: Leaving this page erases the data.

NEW - After you submit this form you will be able to immediately view a page containing your materials and make changes to that page. To do this you will need a SERC account. Visit the login page (opens in a new page) to create an account if you do not have one already. Make sure to use the same email address to create your account and on this submission form.

If you choose not to create an account and view your submission, SERC staff will take care of making your submission into a page. This process usually takes up to one week.

Thank you in advance for making this contribution!









Type of Activity










To help your colleagues understand when or how they might successfully use your activity with their own students, please provide the following information on context.







To help your colleagues understand the role of this activity or assignment in your course, please provide a statement of the goals that you have for students in the following three areas:







Please provide a short description of your activity or assignment and its outcomes. Be sure to include essential key words or index terms to help users find resources using our search/browse functions. You will find a sample description below.
Sample Description

To prepare for this case study, students do background reading on landslides and rock avalanches and read the introductory portion of Hermanns and Strecker's 1999 article on rock avalanches in Argentina. In class, students receive data (assembled from figures in the article) on bedrock geology and physiography, as well as stereonets showing orientations of prominent joint sets, bedding, and foliations in the bedrock. Their task is to answer the question of why gigantic rock avalanches occur is some places but not others in this part of Argentina. The activity gives students practice in interpreting geologic maps, using stereonets, and peer teaching. Each student receives one of four possible data sets and must ultimately explain his/her analysis to others. The activity also connects structural geology to another geoscience discipline.



















We encourage you to upload files with the full activity description or actual assignment, instructor's notes, and a solution set. You may also upload additional supporting materials such as grading rubrics, data files, images, and sample student work. Please be sure that your files are smaller than 50 Mb. This is a hard upper limit - we hope that your files will, in fact, be much smaller than this!

Activity Description/Assignment

A single file containing a complete description of the activity or the actual assignment given to students. Please be sure to include a cover page with at least a title, author(s), affiliation, and contact information. We encourage you to provide relevant background information, context, and goals on the same cover sheet.

Instructor's Notes

A single file with additional background information for the instructor. This might include a discussion of the background knowledge and skills needed to complete the activity, lecture notes, instructions on how to run the activity, tips for success, etc.

Solution Set

A single file with the solutions to the activity.

Supporting Materials

You may upload up to five additional files to accompany your submission. If you have more than five additional files, please combine them (such as in a .zip archive) for uploading.





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