Working with Climate Change Data part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students use spreadsheets to create graphs data related to climate change: sunspots, insolation, carbon dioxide, and global ...

Feldspar Minerals and Triangle Diagrams part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students learn how to read a triangle or ternary diagram. They determine physical properties of feldspars and interpret two ...

Seafloor Spreading: Bathymetry, Anomalies, and Sediments part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students study the bathymetry of the South Atlantic, use magnetic reversals to interpret marine magnetic anomalies, and ...

Igneous Rocks and Triangle Diagrams part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students observe igneous rock compositions and plot them on triangle diagrams, normalize rock compositions using a ...

Tracking Sea Level and Paleoenvironments with Fossils part of Activities
Students use the Paleobiology Database Navigator to examine changes in sea level in southeastern North America throughout the Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Neogene Periods. They will plot the change in distribution of ...

Relative and Absolute Geologic Time with Maps and Spreadsheets part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and takes ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students apply stratigraphic principles for relative dating and basic equations of isotopic systems for absolute dating and ...

Exploring Spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students work with a large set of earthquake data, examine types of charts available in Excel, and use a spreadsheet to ...

Earthquake Seismograms and Spreadsheets part of Activities
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 ...

Plate Tectonics with Maps and Spreadsheets part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students learn about plate tectonic boundaries, earthquakes in a subducting slab, and volcanic hotspot tracks.

Life through Time: Investigating biostratigraphy wth the PBDB part of Activities
Students learn how to use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to investigate the basic principles of biostratigraphy, including, index fossils and how fossils were used to construct the geologic timescale.

Geology of Yellowstone National Park part of Activities
Students examine and interpret the geologic map of Yellowstone National Park, focusing on its volcanic history.

Counting Critters: Using the Paleobiology Database to track fossil diversity through geologic time part of Activities
Students learn how to use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to develop a diversity curve showing changes in global biodiversity through time. They then use this curve to explore major events in the history of life, ...

The Panama Passageway: Using the PBDB to constrain the timing and extent of the The Great American Biotic Interchange part of Activities
Students learn how to use the online Paleobiology Database to map changes in the distribution of fossil vertebrates in the Americas through time. They will generate distribution maps for several key fossil groups ...

The Pleistocene Ice Age part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students work with data about glacial materials, Milankovitch cycles, and stable isotopes from ice cores and deep-sea ...

Topographic Maps from the US Geological Survey part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students learn how to interpret a topographic map. They read contour lines, construct a topographic profile, and calculate ...

Working with State, National, and Global Petroleum Data part of Activities
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students work with data on oil production in Illinois, the United States, and the world, creating graphs to interpret data on ...

Learning About Marine Sediments Using Real Data part of Activities
This exercise set explores marine sediments using real core photos and composition data from the scientific ocean drilling programs DSDP, ODP, and IODP in an inquiry-based approach.

Interpreting the surficial deposits of Glacier National Park, Montana part of Activities
Students interpret a GIS map of surficial deposits in Glacier National Park to unravel a bit of the glacial history of the park.

Erosion of the Grand Canyon part of Activities
Students estimate the volume of the Grand Canyon to calculate the average rate of erosion of the canyon, assuming the canyon began to form approximately 6 million years ago. They then find out how much sediment the ...

Geology of the Grand Canyon part of Activities
Students analyze topographic and geologic maps, through a set of guiding questions, to decipher the geologic history recorded in the rocks of the Grand Canyon.