Concept puzzles about geophysical methods
This material was originally developed as part of the
Carleton College Teaching Activity Collection
through its collaboration with the SERC Pedagogic Service.
through its collaboration with the SERC Pedagogic Service.
Summary
These exercises can be used in class to insure students have a firm grasp on the concepts behind a variety of geophysical techniques and can take anywhere between 10-45 minutes.
Context
Audience
I've use these activities in a sophomore-level Tectonics course and also an upper-division Geophysics course. They help break-up the class-periods and ensure that I do not spend the entire period lecturing. The exercises are designed to fit on half-sheets of paper - this can be beneficial to either save paper or to give students two copies of each exercise, with one to turn in (so you can see how well they understand concepts) and the other to keep.
Designed for a geophysics course
Integrates geophysics into a core course in geology
Designed for a geophysics course
Integrates geophysics into a core course in geology
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
These activities are useful for reviewing concepts behind gravity, magnetics, focal mechanisms, and refraction after discussion in class.
How the activity is situated in the course
These exercises can be used as quizzes for graded or ungraded assessment. They are also effective ways for groups of students to discuss geophysical concepts in class.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
The major goal of each exercise is to give students some intuition behind geophysical concepts and how geophysical data might relate to geologic structures (without getting bogged down in the math behind each method).
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Other skills goals for this activity
Description of the activity/assignment
Concept puzzles are ways to give students practice thinking about geophysical methods and problems. These are used as individual or group in-class activities that can take between 10-45 minutes.
Has minimal/no quantitative component
Has minimal/no quantitative component
Determining whether students have met the goals
These exercises can be collected (and even graded if you want). The confidence scale at the bottom of each exercise can easily be removed it its not wanted, but is generally pretty interesting.
More information about assessment tools and techniques.Teaching materials and tips
- Activity Description/Assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 1.3MB Jul5 07)
- Instructors Notes (Acrobat (PDF) 1.4MB Jul5 07)
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Other Materials
- gravity illustrator file in case you would like to change anything ( 297kB Jul5 07)
- magnetics illustrator file in case you would like to change anything ( 573kB Jul5 07)