Vicki Hansen

Venus, Earth's structural sister: Investigations using radar imagery part of Cutting Edge:Structural Geology:Activities
Students conduct fieldwork on Venus without leaving the lab. Concepts include basic mapping principles, remote data set interpretation, structure morphology and interaction, rheology, temporal relations, and large-scale planet processes. Perhaps most importantly students learn that a geologic map is an interpretation. -

Water: Where, What, Why, How? part of Cutting Edge:Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
Students in groups of 2-3 are charged with constructing posters that deal with the role of water in selected Earth environments. This is the last exercise in a series of poster 'events' in the class. These posters will emphasize rigor and quantitative detail in specific environments, with the collective group of posters used as means to bring many Earth systems together (in space and time) through the 'film' of water. Posters are displayed in a public space on campus, and all students will submit brief evaluations of all the posters, to be shared with fellow students. The class 'final exam' will consist of a guided group discussion of individual posters and connections between the topics of individual posters.

Play With Your Food part of Cutting Edge:Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
Have groups of students build structures with a variety of (the same) food ingredients. The challenge, which group can build the highest and stronger structure. In the process of building and class evaluations of each structure, students learn a lot about strength and rheology.

Vicki Hansen part of Cutting Edge:Complex Systems:Workshop 2010:Participant Essays
Vicki Hansen, Dept. of Geological Sciences, University of Minnesota Duluth Astronaut photograph AS17-148-22727, taken by the crew of Apollo 17, courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center Gateway to Astronaut Photography ...