Unit 1: Slip-sliding away: case study landslides in Italy and Peru part of Surface Process Hazards
How have mass-wasting events affected communities, and what lessons have we learned from these natural disasters that might help us mitigate future hazards? In this unit, students answer these questions by being ...

Unit 2: Reading the landscape part of Surface Process Hazards
How do geologic, hydrologic, biologic, and built-landscape features manifest themselves on maps? In this unit, students will use topographic maps, hillshade maps, and aerial imagery to learn to recognize a variety ...

Unit 3: Understanding landslide factors part of Surface Process Hazards
How do slope characteristics and magnitude of forces dictate whether or not a slope will fail? Can environmental and built characteristics change the magnitude of these forces? In this unit, students qualitatively ...

Unit 6: Hydrologic Balance and Climate Change part of Modeling Earth Systems
In this unit, students create a STELLA model of the Owens River chain of lakes in eastern California and then experiment with different climate change scenarios to simulate the Pleistocene history of lake filling ...

Unit 5: Growth and Decay of Ice Sheets part of Modeling Earth Systems
Large continental ice sheets, such as the Laurentide Ice Sheet from the last glaciation, as well as Antarctica and Greenland of today, are some of the most important features of the global climate system — they ...

Unit 2: Application of Concepts to Case Studies part of Major Storms and Community Resilience
In Unit 2, students apply and evaluate foundational concepts about storm hazards and risk in the context of two cases studies: Superstorm Sandy (2012) and the Storm of the Century (1993). Through different ...

Unit 3: Monitoring groundwater storage with GPS vertical position part of Measuring Water Resources
This unit shows how GPS records of surface elevation can be used to monitor groundwater changes. Students calculate secular trends in the GPS time series and then use the original and detrended records to identify ...

Unit 3.2 - Landforms and Remote Sensing part of Critical Zone Science
In this unit, geomorphic environments and the processes that can move and shape them are explored to learn about the links between landforms, soils, and the Critical Zone. The fundamentals of geomorphology are ...

Unit 3.1 - Geology and Geomorphology part of Critical Zone Science
The basic concepts of geology will be considered to address the widely ranging textures and compositions of rocks and sediments formed in a wide range of environments. These variations in turn can affect soil ...

Unit 1.3 - Systems Models part of Critical Zone Science
The term "Earth system science" is typically used to describe the science (especially quantitative modeling) of the interactions between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and cryosphere, and biosphere---the ...