Geologic Puzzles: Morrison Formation part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
Images of faulted strata, tilted turbidites, and beach rocks bring the field into the classroom, giving students practice in doing what geoscientists do. These images are examples of geologic puzzles. -

Weathering Rates part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
A think-pair-share activity in which students calculate weathering rates from tombstone weathering data. -

Carbon Dioxide Exercise part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
Students work in groups, plotting carbon dioxide concentrations over time on overheads and estimating the rate of change over five years. -

Hotspot Lesson: Mantle Plumes part of ERESE:ERESE Activities
This lesson introduces the theory of mantle plumes and possible ways of finding evidence to support the theory.

Constructing Phylogenetic Trees: The Whippo Story part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
An interactive lecture in which students use data on feeding habits and habitat, skeletons, and DNA sequences to draw phylogenetic trees. -

Hotspot Lesson: Hotspot Theory and Plate Velocities part of ERESE:ERESE Activities
This activity provides the students with a data set of ages of some of the Hawaiian Volcanoes and seamounts and how far they are from the active volcanism (considered to be the location of the hotspot). By plotting the data on a graph and fitting the data with a line of best fit, the plate velocity can be estimated by taking the slope of the line.

Magma Viscosity Demos part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
This is an interactive lecture where students answer questions about demonstrations shown in several movie files. They learn to connect what they have learned about molecules, phases of matter, silicate crystal ...

Rivers: Short In-class Activity part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
Images of the James River in Virginia, including one at flood stage, and of potholes, all of which can be used to have the students make observations, estimates, and interpretations. -

Describe and Interpret Images: Folded Strata part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
In class, have students make a simple sketch of an outcrop shown in a slide (or computer projection) then discuss possible interpretations. -

Using an Applet to Demonstrate a Sampling Distribution part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Interactive Lectures:Examples
Introducing sampling distribution through cooperative learning among students using a group activity. Afterwards, use the sampling distribution applet to illustrate. -