Earth's Surface Features
Summary
This Lecture Tutorial is designed for students to work on in groups after the students have learned about basic surface features and how they relate to planets in general. The tutorial is designed to help students look at these simple features and realize that they are not independent features, but instead are related to the planet as a whole.
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Context
Audience
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
Students need to recognize different surface features and determine what processes were necessary for their formation.
How the activity is situated in the course
Students in groups complete this 10-15 minute Lecture Tutorial activity after a short lecture on the topic during class. There are usually three or four of these types of activities each week.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
Students should be able to describe the processes that form different features on a planet, and then relate how those features can give information about that planet.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Critical thinking, formulation of hypotheses
Other skills goals for this activity
Working in groups, writing
Description of the activity/assignment
Students work in pairs on this worksheet and strengthen their background knowledge by identifying different features in photographs of Earth's surface. Then to build on this base, the students need to determine the key processes that form each of the features. To address a common misconception, students read a debate between two hypothetical students and need to determine which student is stating the scientifically correct idea. The project is summarized by a question posed about the features on a hypothetical planet.
Determining whether students have met the goals
Lecture Tutorial worksheets are designed to help student confront their misconceptions, but generally they are not graded. Rather than grade the Lecture Tutorials, exam questions covering that material are used as assessment.
More information about assessment tools and techniques.Teaching materials and tips
- Activity Description/Assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 566kB May5 08)
Other Materials
Supporting references/URLs
Kortz, K.M., Smay, J.J. and Murray, D.P, 2008, Increasing Learning in Introductory Geoscience Courses Using Lecture Tutorials, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 56, in press.