Plate Tectonics Jigsaw part of Cutting Edge:Introductory Courses:Activities
Students participate in a jigsaw activity to learn about types of plate boundaries, becoming an expert in one of five global datasets - earthquakes, volcanoes, seafloor age, topography, and gravity - and then ...

Petroleum Use Jigsaw Activity/Homework part of Cutting Edge:Energy:Energy Activities
Students get one of 3 homework assignments. They then gather in groups, one that has completed each homework to answer questions as a group. The exercises estimate current oil usage, reserves, and amounts available ...

Learning about Arguments by Making Arguments part of State Your Case:Activities
This is an activity that teaches basic argumentation skills such as generating and formulating claims, presenting evidence , oral and written communication.

Advanced Moon Project part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Guided Discovery Problems:Examples
The moon project is a semester-long research project about the moon; each student explores one of four assigned topics. Over 1-2 months, students make daily naked-eye observations of the moon and construct graphs ...

Using a Groundwater Pollution Problem to Develop Professional Communication Skills part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Professional Communications Projects:Examples

Too many deer? A public hearing part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Teaching with the Case Method:Examples
Students reenact a public hearing to determine how to manage a deer herd that is overpopulated.

Recycle -- or not? A case from New York City part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Teaching with the Case Method:Examples
A case for the analysis of externalities (social costs and benefits) in the context of recycling. Drawn from a program in New York City.

Context-rich problem for cooperative group problem solving - Electric Force part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Context-Rich Problems:Examples
Context-rich problem for electrostatics in an introductory physics class. The instructional setting uses cooperative group problem solving.

National Parks Jigsaw part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Jigsaws:Examples
This jigsaw exercise has students study national parks from different perspectives. Groups can be divided up depending on the nature of the class: historian, meteorologist, geologist, and biologist.

Review exercise for introductory Environmental Science course part of Cutting Edge:Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
This activity could be used toward the end of an Introduction to Environmental Science course (or something similar) as a way to help students review for the exam, and also to make sure they are able to see the ...

Coal: China, Energy and Kyoto - I. Evaluating Coal Leases for Possible Mining part of Cutting Edge:Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
Students evaluate coal leases to determine their potential for coal mining. Each company, student group, creates subsurface geologic models for each lease. Using these models, they recommend to the company board of ...

Global Patterns part of Cutting Edge:Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
Based on my research on how best to enhance students' understanding of complex systems, I utilize various activities to support pattern recognition, a fundamental skill to understanding complex systems ...

Le Parcours de la biodiversitÃ: A Jigsaw Activity on Biodiversity part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Jigsaws:Examples
In this jigsaw activity, students of intermediate-level French will divide into five groups to become experts on each of the five biodiversity questions featured on the Curiosphere website. They will proceed to explain their assigned aspect of the issue to a small group of students.

Exploring phyllosilicate structures with polyhedral models part of Cutting Edge:Mineralogy:Activities
In this exercise, students build polyhedral models to learn about phyllosilicate structures and how they relate to physical properties. This directed-discovery activity is a very 'hands-on' experience ...

Discovering the Principles of Relative Age Determination â a Think-Pair-Share In-Class Activity part of Integrate:Workshops:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities
In this in-class activity, students are challenged to identify rock units and geologic features and determine the relative ages of these features without prior instruction in the classical methods of relative age determination.

Accuracy, Precision, and Topographic Data part of Integrate:Workshops:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities
This jigsaw style exercise challenges new geomorphology students to collect topographic data and analyze its accuracy and precision.

Collaborative Research Project: Geoscience Undergraduate Curricula part of Integrate:Workshops:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities
Collaborative research project in which undergraduate geoscience curricula at Research 1 institutions are compared. This project uses the methods of science to explore a topic that beginning students can understand. This project uses rubrics for self, peer, and instructor assessment.

Evaluating the lines of evidence for plate tectonics part of Integrate:Workshops:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities
In this in-class exercise, students compare several lines of evidence that support the ideas of continental drift and plate tectonics. Before the class meeting, each student is given a preparation assignment in which he/she studies one "continental drift" and one "ocean floor data" map. In class, students divide into teams of 3, with each team member having prepared different specialties. They discuss their respective maps and look for spatial patterns among the data.

The Crusty Loaf of Bread: An Exploration of Area of a Surface of Revolution part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Interactive Lectures:Examples
This write-pair-share activity for Calculus II students involves a hypothetical hemispherical loaf of bread with a 12-inch diameter that has been sliced into twelve one-inch-thick slices. The objective is to determine which slice contains the most upper crust (i.e., most area of its surface of revolution).

Volumes of Solids of Revolution part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Interactive Lectures:Examples
This write-pair-share activity presents Calculus II students with a worksheet containing several exercises that require them to find the volume of solids of revolution using disk, washer and shell methods and to sketch three-dimensional representations of the resulting solids.