Relative Dating with Art part of Introductory Courses:Activities
This activity asks students to make observations of an artwork and to deduce the sequence of events or processes that occurred during the creation of the piece.

Unit 1: Introduction to the Geologic Timeline & Mass Extinctions part of Changing Biosphere
In this unit, students will identify mass extinctions as paleontologists have done and recognize and understand the "pull of the recent," that is, the human tendency to know more about events closer to ...

Unit 2: Causes of Mass Extinction part of Changing Biosphere
During Unit 2, students will learn about the causes of two past mass extinctions and discuss the controversies surrounding these causes and the evidence upon which the theories in the debates are based. Before ...

Unit 4: Impacts of Environmental Change on Organisms: Horses part of Changing Biosphere
In this unit, students will gain a deep-time perspective on how life evolves on a dynamic planet. They will use the Equidae (horse family) as a case study to examine the relationship among climate, biomes, and ...

Unit 5: Summative assessment project part of Analyzing High Resolution Topography with TLS and SfM
Unit 5 is the summative assessment for the module. This final exercise takes eight to ten hours. The exercise evaluates students' developed skills in survey design, execution of a geodetic survey, and simple ...

Unit 3: Geologic Record of Past Climate part of Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources
Students will be introduced to a few of the different methods used in paleoclimatology, including isotopic ratios as paleotemperature proxies. They will investigate the greenhouse gas connections of two ancient ...

Geologic Time part of GET Spatial Learning:Teaching Activities
Formative assessment questions using a classroom response system ("clickers") can be used to reveal students' spatial understanding. Students are shown this diagram and instructed to "Click on ...

Relative and Absolute Geologic Time with Maps and Spreadsheets part of Introductory Courses:Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and takes ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students apply stratigraphic principles for relative dating and basic equations of isotopic systems for absolute dating and ...

3D Model of a Geologic Map part of GET Spatial Learning:Teaching Activities
Students analyze a geologic map of an angular unconformity that truncates a pair of dikes, with some topography. When students have deciphered the map and constructed a cross-section, I show them a Play-Doh model ...

Wakemup Pluton part of GET Spatial Learning:Teaching Activities
Students work through a set of questions about a geologic map of an igneous intrusion and surrounding rock units. These questions focus students' attention on the topography, geomorphology, lithology, and ...

Geologic time scale hiking tour group project part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Students work in groups to develop content for am online hiking tour which is matched to the geologic time scale. This project has been used as a semester group work project in an introductory geologic history ...

How Many Is A Million? part of Rates and Time:Visualizations with Teaching Notes
Roger Steinberg, Department of Natural Sciences, Del Mar College 5000 Dots by Computer (Click image to enlarge and download.)

Geologic Time Scale CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. This worksheet has students build the geologic time scale by adding events on increasing larger scales, from 1 million years to 4.56 billion ...

The Search For Life part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Travel back in geologic time in this online learning experience. Explore some of the major historical events of Earth in an attempt to understand the search for life among other planets in the universe. This is a ...

In-Lecture Story Problems part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Authors: Dr. Kyle C. Fredrick, Department of Earth Sciences, California University of Pennsylvania (fredrick@calu.edu)Dr. Cailey B. Condit, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts ...

Dino Doom part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
This is an online learning experience that transports learners around the world to different locations related to the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event. Students will collect and analyze evidence to ...

Introduction to Evolution (Historical Geology) part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
This is a guided question note sheet with interactive elements linked within for an online course in Earth History or Historical Geology. NOVA evolution lab is one component, along with other introductory videos ...

Modeling Unconformities part of GET Spatial Learning:Teaching Activities
Students make models of various kinds of unconformity: disconformity, angular unconformity, and buttress unconformity. They examine those models from a variety of perspectives and consider how each one appears in ...

The Cosmic Calendar part of Rates and Time:Teaching Activities
In this activity, one takes ALL of time, from the beginning of time (i.e., the Big Bang) all the way up to today, but one compresses it into one year. One can do this for all levels of students depending on how ...

Determining Earthquake Recurrence Intervals from Trench Logs part of Rates and Time:GSA Activity Posters
Trench logs of the San Andreas Fault at Pallett Creek, CA are the data base for a lab or homework assignment that teaches about relative dating, radiometric dating, fault recurrence intervals and the reasons for uncertainty in predicting geologic phenomena. Students are given a trench log that includes several fault strands and dated stratigraphic horizons. They estimate the times of faulting based on bracketing ages of faulted and unfaulted strata. They compile a table with the faulting events from the trench log and additional events recognized in nearby trenches, then calculate maximum, minimum and average earthquake recurrence intervals for the San Andreas Fault in this area. They conclude by making their own prediction for the timing of the next earthquake.