Teaching Geodesy

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MIT student working with GPS and GeoPocket. The GPS can encourage students to depend on the device for position information rather than matching the topography to the map.

Provenance: Image courtesy of CSG, MIT.

Geodesy involves the measurement and monitoring of the size and shape of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional, time varying space. It includes topics such as global positioning system (GPS), airborne or terrestrial lidar (TLS), gravity, Earth's mass distribution, plate motion, sea level, soil moisture, snow fall, vegetation change, subsidence, isostasy, fault strain, glacial movement, volcanic deformation, landslides, and more. Technological advances in geodesy are advancing the way we make measurements and observations, leading to a better understanding of Earth processes. Integrating geodesy into the undergraduate curriculum aids students' understanding of the process of science, including how measurements are made, and can teach valuable skills in using cutting-edge instrumentation, tools, and data-sets.

Jump down to: Course Design & Pedagogy | Resource Collections | Workshops & Events | Get Involved

Designing an Effective Geodesy Course

1. Set goals

Learn more about setting effective course goals in the Course Design Tutorial. You can also explore course goals from others' courses using the syllabi available in the course collection.

2. Consider assessment options

Aligning your assessment strategies with the goals of your course is critical. You can learn more about assessing student learning both as part of the Course Design Tutorial and through our module on Assessing Student Learning.

3. Select pedagogies and teaching activities

Resource Collections

Once you've identified the core learning goals for your course, you can use them to focus your search for relevant materials in our resource collections. The resource collections listed below reflect the contributions of faculty members from across the country.

• Course descriptions contributed by faculty for courses involving geodesy, including course syllabi and goals.
• Teaching activities involving geodesy, contributed by faculty members.
• Visualizations including animations, images, diagrams, and short movies.
• Additional resources, including websites, visualizations, and papers related to geodesy.

Workshops and Events

• 2010 Teaching Geodesy in the 21^st Century workshop - A follow-on to the 2007 On the Cutting Edge Geophysics workshop, this workshop, sponsored by UNAVCO, focused on applications of geodesy to different subdisciplines of Earth science. During the workshop, participants worked together to develop interactive, engaging learning material for students, and helped identify aspects of geodesy to be included in introductory college level geology education. (learn more about the follow-on workshop series from On the Cutting Edge).

Get Involved

• Contribute Materials: We encourage faculty to contribute course descriptions, teaching activities, visualizations, and references to continue to build our collections.
• Join the email list of faculty who teach geodesy or read the archives of email list discussions.