Reef Builders through Time
Peg Yacobucci, Bowling Green State University-Main Campus
Students will use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to explore the history of reef-building animals through time. They will document diversity and extinction patterns through time for seven reef-building marine ...

Lake Modeling Module
This page was initially developed by Carey, C.C., S. Aditya, K. Subratie, and R. Figueiredo. 1 May 2016. Project EDDIE: Modeling Climate Change Effects on Lakes Using Distributed Computing. Project EDDIE Module 4, Version 1. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707 and ACI 1234983. Note: An updated version of this module is available as part of the Macrosystems EDDIE project. Please visit the Climate Change Effects on Lake Temperatures module to view and download module files. We recommend using the updated Macrosystems EDDIE version of the module, as the Lake Modeling module materials have not been maintained with R code and software updates.
Lakes around the globe are experiencing the effects of climate change. In this module, students will learn how to use a lake model to explore the effects of altered weather on lakes, and then develop their own ...

Nutrient Loading Module
This module was initially developed by Castendyk, D.N., T. Meixner, and C.A. Gibson. 6 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Nutrient Loading. Project EDDIE Module 7, Version 1. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Estimating nutrient loads is a critical concept for students studying water quality in a variety of environmental settings. Many STEM/Environmental science students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic activities on human water resources and/or ecosystems as part of their future careers. This module engages students in exploring factors contributing to the actual loads of nitrogen that are transmitted down streams. Nitrogen is a key water quality contaminant contributing to surface water quality issues in fresh, salt, and estuarine environments. Students will utilize real-time nitrate data from the US Geological Survey to calculate nitrate loads for several locations and investigate the interplay of concentration and discharge that contributes to calculated loads.

Lesson 3: The Value of a Water Footprint (High School)
Kai Olson-Sawyer, GRACE Communications Foundation
Session 1 of this lesson begins with a quick activity to get students thinking about their direct and virtual water use. It introduces a few new ideas for virtual water use that may surprise students, including the ...

Volcano Monitoring with GPS: Westdahl Volcano Alaska
Maite Agopian, EarthScope; Beth Pratt-Sitaula, EarthScope Consortium
Learners use graphs of GPS position data to determine how the shape of Westdahl Volcano, Alaska is changing. If the flanks of a volcano swell or recede, it is a potential indication of magma movement and changing ...

Exploring Tectonic Motions with GPS
Shelley Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Using a map showing the horizontal velocities of GPS stations in the Plate Boundary Observatory and other GPS networks in Alaska and Western United States, students are able to describe the motions in different regions by interpreting the vectors resulting from long-term high-precision Global Positioning System (GPS) data. Show more information on NGSS alignment Hide NGSS ALIGNMENT Disciplinary Core Ideas History of Earth: HS-ESS1-5 Earth' Systems: MS-ESS2-2 Earth and Human Activity: MS-ESS3-2, HS-ESS3-1 Science and Engineering Practices 4. Analyzing and Interpreting Data 5. Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking 6. Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions Crosscutting Concepts 4. Systems and System Models 7. Stability and Change

Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Shelley Olds, EarthScope Consortium
This lesson teaches middle and high school students to understand the architecture of GPS—from satellites to research quality stations on the ground. This is done with physical models and a presentation. Then students learn to interpret data for the station's position through time ("time series plots"). Students represent time series data as velocity vectors and add the vectors to create a total horizontal velocity vector. They apply their skills to discover that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is rifting Iceland. They cement and expand their understanding of GPS data with an abstraction using cars and maps. Finally, they explore GPS vectors in the context of global plate tectonics.

Climate Change Effects on Lake Temperatures
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Climate change is modifying the thermal structure of lakes around the globe. Because it is difficult to predict how lakes will respond to the many different aspects of climate change (e.g., altered temperature, ...

Wind and Ocean Ecosystems
Alanna Lecher, Lynn University; April Watson, Lynn University
Wind has a fundamental impact on ocean ecosystems. Wind drives physical processes, including current development and upwelling through Ekman transport. These physical processes, in turn, have cascading impacts on ...

Rocks are Elastic!! Seeing is Believing
IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology)
This activity helps learners see the elastic properties of rocks by actually bending marble. How rocks respond to stress is a fundamental concept, critical to forming explanatory models in the geosciences (e.g., elastic rebound theory). Whereas learners are likely to have lots of experience with rocks, few will have directly experienced them behaving elastically. As a result of this "missed experience", most learners conceptualize rocks as rigid solids; a concept which generally serves students well in everyday life but impedes learning about particular geologic concepts.