Exemplary Teaching Activities
Beginning in 2011, On the Cutting Edge began a process to review the extensive collection of activities submitted by workshop participants and members of the geoscience community. With the transition of the On the Cutting Edge program into NAGT the review process is now being used to broadly review online teaching activities relevant to NAGT's community of Earth educators. Through this review processes activities are scored on 5 elements: scientific veracity; alignment of goals, activity, and assessment; pedagogical effectiveness; robustness; and completeness of the description. The activities that score very highly in these areas become part of the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection and are featured below.
You may also be interested in the full collection of teaching activities.
Subject: Geoscience
Theme: Teach the Earth
Grade Level
Results 1 - 10 of 891 matches
Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized Board Game part of Teaching Activities
Rowan Martindale, The University of Texas at Austin
Incorporating games in teaching can help students retain material and become innovative problem solvers through engagement and enjoyment. Our board game, "Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized" can be used as an ...
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Frequency of Large Earthquakes part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Using the IRIS Earthquake Browser tool, students gather data to support a claim about how many large (Mw 8+) earthquakes will happen globally each year. This activity provides scaffolded experience downloading data and manipulating data within a spreadsheet.
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Discover Plate Tectonics part of Guided Inquiry Introductory Geology Labs:Activities
Angela Daneshmand, Santiago Canyon College
This is a student-centered activity for a synchronous online course where students access google slides to complete during a video conferencing session (eg. Zoom) in break out rooms. Students will be introduced to ...
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Getting started with Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
Beth Pratt-Sitaula, EarthScope
Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry method uses overlapping images to create a 3D point cloud of an object or landscape. It can be applied to everything from fault scarps to landslides to topography. This ...
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Wind and Ocean Ecosystems part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...
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Indiana River Meanders Mapping Exercise part of Teaching Activities
Emily Zawacki, Arizona State University Campus Immersion
In Indiana, major rivers and their tributaries cross much of the state. These rivers can produce significant hazards related to flooding and erosion, which threaten nearby residents and infrastructure. Rivers are ...
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Measuring Ground Motion with GPS: How GPS Works part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
With printouts of typical GPS velocity vectors found near different tectonic boundaries and models of a GPS station, demonstrate how GPS work to measure ground motion.GPS velocity vectors point in the direction that a GPS station moves as the ground it is anchored to moves. The length of a velocity vector corresponds to the rate of motion. GPS velocity vectors thus provide useful information for how Earth's crust deforms in different tectonic settings.
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Remote Sensing Applications in Hydrology part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:Teaching Materials:Activities
Emad Habib, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
The module offers background content on the fundamentals of remote sensing, but also integrates a set of existing online tools for visualization and analysis of satellite observations. Specifically, students are ...
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Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; David Thesenga, Front Range Community College
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.
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Engaging With Earthquake Hazard and Risk part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering; Erin Schneider, Anchorage School District, Goldenview Middle School
This introductory activity engages learners in the study of earthquake hazards and the risk these hazards pose to humans in the communities in which we live. Learners will compare three maps of Anchorage, AK, depicting spatial information related to seismic hazards to generate questions about the factors that influence shaking intensity and damage to the built environment during earthquakes.
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