Jurassic Park Debate
Rebecca Teed, Wright State University-Main Campus
This role-playing exercise casts students as scientific specialists, assigned to a group either supporting or opposing the cloning of dinosaurs. Each group researches and presents its argument. -

Fossil Identification Board Game
Robert L. Reuss and Anne F. Gardulski (Tufts University)
The instructor uses a series of games to help students identify and answer questions about fossils. The game grows more complex over time as the instructors add rules and phyla to identify. -

Relative Dating on Earth and Mars
Sara Harris, University of British Columbia
Students apply principles of relative dating to a cross-section, then to the surface of Mars.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Earth Materials and Ancient Cultures
Wayne Powell, CUNY Brooklyn College
Students investigate properties of earth materials through the lens of art and archeology. It allows ties to other required core curriculum courses (particularly classics and art history), and integrates the use of ...

The Scientific Method
Kyle Fredrick, California University of Pennsylvania
This assignment is designed to introduce the students to the idea and process of the scientific method. They are led to recognize that much of their own thinking is through the Scientific Method.

Physical Geology: Idaho Field Trip
Simon Kattenhorn, University of Idaho
Optional field trip to local sites of geologic interest/relevance.

Seafloor Ages Lecture Tutorial
Karen Kortz, Community College of Rhode Island
Students work on this Lecture Tutorial worksheet on seafloor ages in pairs during lecture. It directly confronts misconceptions students have about the age of the seafloor, and it guides students to more complex ...

Geomorphology Field Research Project
Jeff Marshall, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona
This research project allows students to integrate and apply their geomorphic knowledge in a comprehensive study of a local landscape. Working in teams, they investigate uplifted alluvial deposits along the ...

Humans as Geomorphic Agents
Catherine Riihimaki, Drew University
An introduction to order-of-magnitude calculations and reading quantitative journal articles.

Tombstone Weathering Lab
Alison Anders, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
During a field trip to a cemetery students collect data on the weathering of tombstones. They graph the data and make hypotheses about factors other than age that contribute to the different degrees of weathering ...