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 3: Understanding landslide factors
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 4: Anatomy of a tragic slide: Oso Landslide case study
Landslides can have profound societal consequences, such as did the slide that occurred near Oso, Washington in 2014. Forty-three people were killed and entire rural neighborhood was destroyed. In this unit, ...

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: 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 3: Culmination of Module in Town Hall Meeting
Over the course of one week, students will apply and evaluate concepts in the context of their local community, culminating in the formulation and evaluation of Hazard Mitigation Plan recommendations presented in ...

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 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 3: Monitoring groundwater storage with GPS vertical position
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 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 3: The Interconnected Nature of the Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, and Biosphere
Using a systems dynamics approach, students will work in groups to conceptualize and construct a model of the global carbon cycle considering five major Earth systems: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, ...

Unit 4: GPS and infinitesimal strain analysis
Students work with GPS velocity data from three stations in the same region that form an acute triangle. By investigating how the ellipse inscribed within this triangle deforms, students learn about strain, strain ...

Unit 6: Applying GPS strain and earthquake hazard analyses to different regions
Students select their own set of three stations in an area of interest to them, conduct a strain analysis of the area between the stations, and tie the findings to regional tectonics and societal impacts in a 5–7 ...

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 5: 2014 South Napa Earthquake and GPS strain
The 2014 South Napa earthquake was the first large earthquake (Mag 6) to occur within the Plate Boundary Observatory GPS network since installation. It provides an excellent example for studying crustal strain ...

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 8. Impacts of Extreme Hydroclimatic Events
Unit 8 covers the basics of hydroclimatic extreme events with a focus on floods and droughts. Topics include introduction to floods and droughts, impact of urbanization on extremes, how to understand and predict ...

Climate Change, After the Storm

Unit 1: "If an earthquake happens in the desert and no one lives there, should we care about it?" [How are human-made infrastructure lifelines affected by earthquakes?]
This unit initiates a discussion about the importance of recognizing faults in relation to modern societal infrastructure. Students consider the types of infrastructure necessary to support a modern lifestyle, ...