Understanding the Deep Earth

The Deep Earth provides educators with rich possibilities for helping their students understand some very important geoscience methods and content. Modeling and laboratory experiments are important to the study of geoscience in general, but in settings like the deep earth where direct observation is difficult or impossible they become even more so. There is also the challenge and opportunity of helping students understand how we know about phenomena that we can't observe directly.

Workshops

2011 Workshop - Visualizing Seismic Waves for Teaching and Research

This hybrid virtual workshop facilitates learning about seismic waves, their properties, the information they convey, and how they are used for a wide variety of applications. Strategies for visualizing and communicating this information to students is central to the discussions and presentations for the workshop.

2010 Workshop - Understanding the Deep Earth: Slabs, Drips, Plumes and More

This virtual workshop focused on the exciting new science that is emerging from the study of the deep earth using a variety of approaches. This is an opportunity for participants to survey the breadth of new information that is currently available through recent research about the deep earth, and to explore new ways to integrate this information into undergraduate geoscience course work.

Resources for Teaching about the Deep Earth

Teaching Activities: Activities for homework, class, and lab submitted by college faculty from across the country
Visualization Collections: Graphics, animations, videos and more for use in teaching Deep Earth concepts
Topical Resources: Links to sites, teaching activities, and references related to specific Deep Earth topics. Includes resources associated with presentations at the 2010 workshop.
Internet Resources: Research results and teaching materials relevant to teaching about the Deep Earth
Teaching Mineral Physics: Sets of web pages that can be used to teach mineral physics topics. Each page contains an introduction to the topic, a list of additional literature, and related links.