Continental Glaciation - Landforms

Rich Whittecar

Old Dominion University

This activity has been reviewed by 2 review processes (view details)

This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection

This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
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This activity has benefited from input from faculty educators beyond the author through a review and suggestion process. This review took place as a part of a faculty professional development workshop where groups of faculty reviewed each others' activities and offered feedback and ideas for improvements. To learn more about the process On the Cutting Edge uses for activity review, see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.

Initial Publication Date: May 2, 2008 | Reviewed: November 3, 2013 (see revision history: 2 events)

Summary

This exercise provides reinforcement for student learning of the processes under and around continental ice sheets that form geomorphic features. The goal is to strengthen each student's ability to associate the geomorphic process, setting, landform shape, and geologic materials expectable within the landform, and their ability to describe those relationships.

Glacial/Periglacial | College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)

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Context

Audience

undergraduate course in geomorphology

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

use of stereoscopes and aerial photography; read and interpret topographic maps; dynamics of active and stagnant glacial ice, meltwater flow, and sediment transport in ice and water

How the activity is situated in the course

last in series of exercises that reinforce concepts about glaciology and alpine glacial landforms

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

The goal is to strengthen each student's ability to associate the geomorphic process, setting, landform shape, and geologic materials expectable within the landform, and their ability to describe those relationships.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

synthesizing data about where and how landforms developed under different glacial environments, and explaining the sequence of geomorphic events through time as the ice sheet retreated.

Other skills goals for this activity

Description of the activity/assignment

To prepare for this exercise, students participate in a teacher-led discussion about processes of erosion and deposition in different environments under and around continental ice sheets. They then work in small groups of 2-3 to examine stereopairs of examples of landforms representative of subglacial and end-glacial settings. The culminating set of questions require them to find and analyze the sequence of formation of a dozen or so landforms from different glacial environments scattered over one topographic quadrangle.
Designed for a geomorphology course
Has minimal/no quantitative component