Exploring the Grand Canyon: Layers and Superposition
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 and superposition (relative age of rocks).
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 geological concepts such as geologic time, rock units, rock types, layering and superposition (relative age of rocks).
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 and images) is estimated to take about 20-30 minutes.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
In this guided virtual field trip (VFT) learners will investigate rock units in the Grand Canyon to learn about their age and what the environment was like in Arizona when they were deposited.
Learning outcome #1: Visually observe different rock units
Learning outcome #2: Identify various rock types and their ages
Learning outcome #3: Explore what animals might have existed when these layers were being deposited
Learning outcome #4: Learn how the relative age of a rock unit can be determined by where it is in a sequence (superposition)
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Learners will explore the rock layers in an area of the Grand Canyon to study their age and what the Earth was like when these units were deposited.
Other skills goals for this activity
Description and Teaching Materials
This activity is accessible at https://vft.asu.edu/ through the Center for Education Through eXploration (https://etx.asu.edu/) at Arizona State University. They build adaptive digital learning experiences for K-12 education that engage learners in virtual environments and bring Earth and space science to life.
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.
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.
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