Unit 5: Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Soil Loss part of A Growing Concern
Students will investigate how the factors that influence erosion work together to produce an overall erosion rate. In agricultural areas, these factors are rainfall-runoff erosivity, soil erodibility, slope ...

Unit 4: Using SoilWebTMto Investigate the Soil Beneath You part of A Growing Concern
Students will use SoilWeb™, a smartphone and web application that pulls detailed soil survey data from both the 1:24,0000 Soil Survey Geographic database (SSURGO) and the 1:250,000 scale State Soil Geographic ...

Unit 3: Natural and Agricultural Erosion Rates part of A Growing Concern
Students will identify their perceptions of erosion by examining images of mountain and agricultural landscapes and discussing which environment is more erosive. They will use geospatial figures to compare erosion ...

Modeling Exsolution (and Perthite Formation) as an Example of Complex-System Behavior part of Teaching Activities
Students use a physical model, computer simulation, examples from the natural world, visualizations, and overarching thought experiments to explore this phenomenon. Exsolution embodies attributes of a complex ...

Visualizing the Shields Parameter part of Sedimentary Geology:Activities
The Shields parameter is a fundamental dimensionless variable that embodies the complex factors that interact to initiate motion on a sediment bed. Many students have trouble grasping this (and most other) ...

Hydrologic Cycle and Water Balance Equation part of Hydrogeology:Activities
The assignment works with the mass balance equation in concert with the hydrologic cycle. Students create both a conceptual model and a mathematical model to represent the hydrologic cycle for a basin.

Atmospheric methyl chloroform: a leaky water tank example part of Teaching Activities
Atmospheric methyl chloroform concentration is modeled as an extension of the generic water tank structure. Simulated and observed concentrations are used to estimate the global atmospheric lifetime of methyl ...

Thermal Exhumation Model part of Teaching Activities
Build a one-dimensional thermal model in STELLA of rock uplift. Determine how the speed of uplift affects the geotherm and why uplift rates determined from heat flow are often too high. The model demonstrates the ...

Constraints and Implications of Groundwater Temperature on the Formation of Mississippi Valley-type Zn-Pb Deposits part of Hydrogeology:Activities
This assignment illustrates the role of groundwater in transporting heat and its implications for the formation of hydrothermal ore deposits. The assignment uses a combination of graphs and algebraic equations that ...

Hurricane Tracking part of Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection:Activities
This is a homework assignment that focuses student attention on ongoing hurricane/tropical storm development, often during the height of hurricane season. The students are directed to a web site (I like ...