The activity is used in an undergraduate introductory physical geography course that includes a 2-hour laboratory session that meets once per week. The focus of the course is landforms and soils. The course is predominantly composed of non-majors.

It helps if students have previous experience with topographic map analysis and creating and interpreting graphs.

This is a stand-alone exercise that reinforces concepts introduced in lecture. This exercise is assigned near the end of the semester, so students already have considerable experience working with topographic maps and creating and interpreting graphs.

• Purpose is to become familiar with utilizing proxy records to reconstruct past climates and processes of landscape evolution
  
• Interpret a topographic map
  
• Create and interpret graphical data
  
• Link climate data with geomorphic processes
  

Students complete background readings and answer questions in part 1 as a pre-lab activity with a five-question online pre-lab quiz. In class, students are placed in groups of four. I show the online video

Students complete the exercise during a 2-hour laboratory session. Students are expected to work in groups of four. Upon completion of the laboratory exercise, students must complete an online quiz that consists of the same questions in the exercise as well as questions on the background information included in the lab before the next lab meeting. The online quiz is within the Desire 2 Learn (D2L) online learning platform, so answers are automatically graded and imported into the student's grade book.