Getting started with Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry part of Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
Beth Pratt-Sitaula, EarthScope
Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry method uses overlapping images to create a 3D point cloud of an object or landscape. It can be applied to everything from fault scarps to landslides to topography. This ...

Virtual Geologic Mapping Exercise at Lough Fee part of Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
Steve Whitmeyer, James Madison University
The Virtual Geologic Mapping Exercise is designed to simulate an introductory field mapping exercise. Students load a KML file in Google Earth that includes real outcrop data in the form of dots and orientation ...

Measuring the Inclination and Declination of the Earth's magnetic field with a smartphone part of Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
Avradip Ghosh, University of Houston
The poles of the Earth's magnetic field are not precisely aligned with the geographic north and south poles and, in fact, vary continuously. This activity introduces to students the Earth's magnetic ...

Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Roger Groom, Mt. Tabor Middle School; Cate Fox-Lent, UNAVCO; Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Nancy West, Quarter Dome Consulting; David Thesenga, Front Range Community College
This lesson teaches middle and high school students to understand the architecture of GPS—from satellites to research quality stations on the ground. This is done with physical models and a presentation. Then students learn to interpret data for the station's position through time ("time series plots"). Students represent time series data as velocity vectors and add the vectors to create a total horizontal velocity vector. They apply their skills to discover that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is rifting Iceland. They cement and expand their understanding of GPS data with an abstraction using cars and maps. Finally, they explore GPS vectors in the context of global plate tectonics.

Visualizing Relationships with Data: Exploring plate boundaries with Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and GPS Data in the Western U.S. & Alaska | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Ruth Powers, Master Teacher-In-Residence; Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Becca Walker, Mt San Antonio College
Learners use the GPS Velocity Viewer, or the included map packet to visualize relationships between earthquakes, volcanoes, and plate boundaries as a jigsaw activity.

Episodic tremor and slip: The Case of the Mystery Earthquakes | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Roger Groom, Mt. Tabor Middle School; Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Herb Dragert, Geological Survey of Canada; Bob Butler, U. Portland; Jenda Johnson, IRIS; Nancy West, Quarter Dome Consulting; David Thesenga, Alexander Dawson School
Earthquakes in western Washington and Oregon are to be expected—the region lies in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Offshore, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate subducts under the North American plate, from northern California to British Columbia. The region, however, also experiences exotic seismicity— Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS).In this lesson, your students study seismic and GPS data from the region to recognize a pattern in which unusual tremors--with no surface earthquakes--coincide with jumps of GPS stations. This is ETS. Students model ductile and brittle behavior of the crust with lasagna noodles to understand how properties of materials depend on physical conditions. Finally, they assemble their knowledge of the data and models into an understanding of ETS in subduction zones and its relevance to the millions of residents in Cascadia.

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Roger Groom, Mt. Tabor Middle School; Andy Newman, Georgia Institute of Technology; Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Cate Fox-Lent, UNAVCO; Nancy West, Quarter Dome Consulting; David Thesenga, Front Range Community College
Students analyze data to study the motion of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. From GPS data, students detect relative motion between the plates in the San Andreas fault zone--with and without earthquakes. To get to that discovery, they use physical models to understand the architecture of GPS, from satellites to sensitive stations on the ground. They learn to interpret time series data collected by stations (in the spreading regime of Iceland), to cast data as horizontal north-south and east-west vectors, and to add those vectors head-to-tail.Students then apply their skills and understanding to data in the context of the strike-slip fault zone of a transform plate boundary. They interpret time series plots from an earthquake in Parkfield, CA to calculate the resulting slip on the fault and (optionally) the earthquake's magnitude.

Measuring Ground Motion with GPS: How GPS Works part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Daniel Zietlow, UNAVCO; David Thesanga, Alexander Dawson School
With printouts of typical GPS velocity vectors found near different tectonic boundaries and models of a GPS station, demonstrate how GPS work to measure ground motion.GPS velocity vectors point in the direction that a GPS station moves as the ground it is anchored to moves. The length of a velocity vector corresponds to the rate of motion. GPS velocity vectors thus provide useful information for how Earth's crust deforms in different tectonic settings.

Quaternary mapping in Bells Canyon as an introduction to ArcGIS Pro part of Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
Karen Gran, University of Minnesota-Duluth
This lab is intended to take a GIS novice and introduce them to mapping in ArcGIS Pro by producing a Quaternary map of Bells Canyon in Utah. It can be used as a first GIS exercise to introduce select skills to the ...

Pinpointing Location with GPS Demonstration: How GPS Works (Part 2) part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Daniel Zietlow, UNAVCO; David Thesenga, Alexander Dawson School
Using string, bubble gum, and a model of a GPS station, demonstrate how GPS work to pinpoint a location on Earth.Precisely knowing a location on Earth is useful because our Earth's surface is constantly changing from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate motion, landslides, and more. Thus, scientists can use positions determined with GPS to study all these Earth processes.