Unit 2: Global Sea-Level Response to Temperature Changes: Temperature and Altimetry Data
What is the contribution of seawater thermal expansion to recent sea-level rise? In this unit, students create time-series graphs of global averaged sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) data spanning 1880–2017 ...

Unit 2: Earthquakes, GPS, and Plate Movement
GPS data can measure bedrock motion in response to deformation of the ground near plate boundaries because of plate tectonics. In this module, students will learn how to read GPS data to interpret how the bedrock ...

Converging Tectonic Plates Demonstration
During this demo, participants use springs and a map of the Pacific Northwest with GPS vectors to investigate the stresses and surface expression of subduction zones, specifically the Juan de Fuca plate diving beneath the North American plate.

Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
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.

Detecting Cascadia's changing shape with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Research-grade Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allow students to deduce that Earth's crust is changing shape in measurable ways. From data gathered by EarthScope's Plate Boundary Observatory, students discover that the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal British Columbia — the Cascadia region - are geologically active: tectonic plates move and collide; they shift and buckle; continental crust deforms; regions warp; rocks crumple, bend, and will break.

Unit 5: Mitigating future disasters: developing a mass-wasting hazard map
This unit serves as the summative assessment of the Surface Process Hazards module. In September 2013, the Boulder area of Colorado experienced an extreme rain event that led to mass wasting in many areas. This has ...

Unit 1: Slip-sliding away: case study landslides in Italy and Peru
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: Application of Concepts to Case Studies
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 1: Foundational Concepts
Unit 1 introduces foundational concepts in geoscience, emergency management, and political science that are critical for developing a systems thinking approach and for achieving the learning objectives in the storm ...

Unit 4: Water budget assessment of a California drought
The California Drought of 2012–2016 had significant social and economic consequences. This final unit focuses on this drought as a case study for measuring the hydrologic system so that we can better understand ...

Unit 2: Causes of Mass Extinction
During Unit 2, students will learn about the causes of two past mass extinctions and discuss the controversies surrounding these causes and the evidence upon which the theories in the debates are based. Before ...

Unit 1: Earthquake!
In this opening unit, students develop the societal context for understanding earthquake hazards using as a case study the 2011 Tohoku, Japan, earthquake. It starts with a short homework "scavenger hunt" ...

Unit 6: Capstone: A modern catastrophic volcanic eruption?
This unit is the module's capstone project: developing a conceptual model of the climatic and societal effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurring in modern times. Through independent research and ...

Unit 5: Summative assessment project
Unit 5 is the summative assessment for the module. This final exercise takes eight to ten hours. The exercise evaluates students' developed skills in survey design, execution of a geodetic survey, and simple ...

Unit 4: The phenomenology of earthquakes from InSAR data
How are different types of earthquakes represented in InSAR data? How can we obtain detailed information on the earthquake source from InSAR data? How well can we resolve those details? In this unit, students ...

Let's Look Inside the Earth
Students will analyze USGS seismology data in the classroom using spreadsheets and scatter plots to look for patterns and structure in the Earth's crust. Before analyzing data, students will learn about the ...

Understanding Doppler radar radial velocity fields
This activity is designed to help students learn how to interpret Doppler radial velocity radar images with meteorological applications, as well as giving students a chance to practice their spatial skills.

Earthquake Seismograms and Spreadsheets
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students read and interpret seismograms, determine the epicenter of an earthquake by triangulation, and learn how to enter ...

Rivers and Floods in Tampa FL on the Sulphur Springs Quadrangle
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students study a topographic map, draw drainage divides, calculate recurrence intervals for two streams, create a recurrence ...

Tsunami Stories: Learning from Oral Histories from Around the World
In this jigsaw activity, students are placed in groups. Each group reads a different written record of an indigenous oral history about tsunamis. These indigenous stories are from around the world. To guide their ...