Converging Tectonic Plates Demonstration
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
During this demo, participants use springs and a map of the Pacific Northwest with GPS vectors to investigate the stresses and surface expression of subduction zones, specifically the Juan de Fuca plate diving beneath the North American plate.

Modeling Rare Plant Distributions Using ArcGIS
Elizabeth Crook, University of California-Irvine
In this activity, students work with rare plant occurrence data from the Nature Reserve of Orange County, California to create species distribution maps in ArcGIS. Students are given shapefiles of species ...

Old Sticks in the Mud: Hazards of Lahars from Mount Rainier Volcano
Patrick Pringle, Centralia College
Volcanic debris flows (lahars) flow long distances, bury and aggrade river valleys, and cause long-term stream disturbances and dramatic landscape changes. Students will evaluate the nature, scale, and history of ...

Where Does Stream Water Come From?
Christa Torrens, University of Colorado at Boulder
In this module, students explore various sources of stream water through reading, discussion, and data analysis in R. The module focuses on streams from four distinct LTER sites: an Antarctic desert stream, an Arizona desert stream, an Arctic tundra stream, and a temperate forest stream in New England.

Benefits and consequences of using minerals as natural resources
Geoffrey Cook, University of California-San Diego
In a short research assignment, students learn about mineral resources that are used in common, present-day electronic devices (a cell-phone is used as a prime example). They investigate the environmental and ...

Mapping Habitable Range Shifts of Salt Marsh Bird's Beak Due to Sea Level Rise (ArcGIS)
Elizabeth Crook, University of California-Irvine
Salt Marsh Bird's Beak is an endangered plant species that is endemic to the Upper Newport Bay of Newport Beach, California. Because this rare and important species occupies a narrow ecological niche, as sea ...

Image Classification
Brian Welch, Saint Olaf College
An exercise to use a simple image analysis program to classify land surface types seen in satellite imagery in order to analyze changes in landscape development over time. -

Calculation of Stream Discharge
Bruce Rueger, Colby College
This lab is a field oriented exercise that visits two sites on the same stream to calculate stream discharge. It illustrates the influences of stream cross-sectional area on discharge and the resistance of bedrock ...

Earthquakes
Achim Herrmann, Louisiana State University
This activity uses geoinformatics to understand the world around us with an emphasis on earthquakes.

Volcanoes Around the Globe
Mark Abolins, Middle Tennessee State University
Undergraduate non-majors use the Arcview geographic information system (GIS) to explore volcanic hazards and the geochemistry of volcanic rocks. Students explore geochemical data from the GEOROC global database and ...