Exploring the Grand Canyon: Mystery of Blacktail Canyon
Summary
Nearly two billion years of the Earth's geological history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layers of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. It's significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that is exposed in the walls of the canyon. These layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent.
This is a guided virtual field trip with an adaptive learning lab.
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Context
Audience
This resource is designed for use in freshman introductory geoscience courses (intro to physical geology, historical geology), but can also be used in a wide array of formal and informal educational settings.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
Students should be familiar with geologic time (or deep time), rock units, rock types, layering, rock formation, banding, cross bedding, uplift and erosion.
How the activity is situated in the course
This is designed to be a stand-alone activity to be used after students have some basic knowledge of basic geological concepts such as geologic time, rock types, sedimentary structures, uplift and erosion.
Activity Length
This virtual field trip contains a guided adaptive learning lab. Exploration of the virtual field site and completion of the lab (with associated videos, images and interactive gigapixel images) is estimated to take about 1 hour.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
What is so intriguing about this side canyon at mile marker 121? The Grand Canyon is one of only a few places to explore nearly two billion years of Earth History. In this guided virtual field trip (VFT) learners will investigate the intriguing side canyon at mile marker 121.
Learning outcome #1: Visually observe different rock units.
Learning outcome #2: Identify various rock types and their ages
Learning outcome #3: Examine the characteristics unique to each rock type
Learning outcome #4: Recognize the unconformity and what it represents
Learning outcome #5: Distinguish how and where sedimentary and metamorphic rocks are formed
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Learners explore the interesting side canyon at mile 121 to observe the rocks, learn how they formed, and explore how the dramatic changes are reflected in the rocks of this canyon.
Other skills goals for this activity
Making observations, identify patterns, providing evidence to support reasoning.
Description and Teaching Materials
![[creative commons]](/images/creativecommons_16.png)
Technology Needs
Real-time Internet access is required to view this VFT. We recommend the use of the browsers Google Chrome or Firefox for the best results. It is not optimized for viewing on mobile devices.
Teaching Notes and Tips
If the VFT is accessed through Infiniscope.org, instructors can create a free account and enroll their students. The educator resources on Infiniscope.org include teacher tips, misconception alerts, and suggestions for implementation.
Assessment
This guided VFT possesses an embedded assessment within the online lab. The instructor can set up a free account to gain access to analytics for their class, or simply have learners take a screenshot of their final lab score.
References and Resources
https://infiniscope.org/
Infiniscope members have access to a community where they can ask questions and get support on implementation.