Virtual Rock Lab part of Activities
Students use a website to identify rocks based on their properties.

Geologic Time Scale CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. This worksheet has students build the geologic time scale by adding events on increasing larger scales, from 1 million years to 4.56 billion ...

Topographic Maps CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. Students create a topographic map of a 3D model by tracing the boundary of water as it floods the model and rises every 10 feet.

Stratigraphy of the Grand Canyon CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. Students use a geologic map of the Grand Canyon and descriptions of each unit (name, age, thickness, relative resistance) to build a ...

Glacial Movement CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. Students work on understanding glacial flow and ablation by drawing arrow to indication downhill ice flow direction, drawing glacial toe ...

Glacial Geomorphology CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. Students use glacial landforms to determine the flow direction of ice and the extent of glaciation in Wisconsin.

Water Table Contours and Contamination CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. Students use water table elevations from wells to draw the contours of the water table onto a map. Students also indicate the groundwater flow ...

Stick-Slip Faulting and Earthquakes CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. This worksheet introduces stick-slip faulting and earthquakes by having students: 1) Identify sticking points in strike-slip fault traces; and ...

Flood Recurrence CogSketch geoscience worksheet part of Activities
Sketching activity that uses a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. This worksheet has students determine and plot the extent of a 100-year flood onto a map and determine which houses could be affected.

Learning Assessment #5 - Geologic Time (2011) part of Activities
An in-class activity that tests students' understanding of the principles of relative age, absolute age and numerical age bracketing.

Sedimentary Transport part of Activities
This activity gets students to compare the relationship between river flow energy and sediment size. The final question requires them to solve a more dynamic problem - one with changing energy levels - a rock ...

Plate Tectonics Jigsaw part of Activities
Students participate in a jigsaw activity to learn about types of plate boundaries, becoming an expert in one of five global datasets - earthquakes, volcanoes, seafloor age, topography, and gravity - and then ...

Emergent Models in Google Earth part of Activities
This is one sample of a set of emergent models we are developing for use with Google Earth. Students use the Google Earth time-slider to lift 3D models of the subsurface into view. They can substitute their own ...

Volcanoes Writing Assignment part of Activities
Students write an original work of fiction pertaining to the geology of stratovolcanoes and their eruptive hazards.

Evolution of Whales part of Activities
The students read two articles on the evolution of whales and search the web. The students' writing assignment requires them to outline the evolution of whales using major fossil finds. Students start with ...

Walking Field Trip to the San Andreas Fault part of Activities
Due to our University's unique location approximately one mile from the nearest trace of the San Andreas Fault, we are able to take students on a walking field trip to the San Andreas. On the trip we set the ...

Mineral Selfie part of Activities
Students identify minerals used in their everyday lives by taking a 'selfie' with the product and then sharing their photo with their fellow students on a class blog.

Short Geology Research Paper part of Activities
Students are assigned to take a topic and research it in some depth, beyond the discussion in the class or in the book. The paper is 4-6 typed pages in length. Suggested topics include geologic hazards, geologic ...

Geologic Structures Lab part of Activities
In class activity involving a thought exercise about rock rheology, discussion and drawing of simple brittle and ductile structures, and then reading an article about how the depth of the brittle-ductile transition ...

Relative Age-dating -- Discovery of Important Stratigraphic Principles part of Activities
Students don't have to be passively taught the important principles geologists use to do relative age-dating of rocks and geologic events. By careful analysis and critical thinking about photos and ...