Teaching Activities

These teaching activities have a strong spatial thinking component. Search the collection to find activities suitable for your classes.



Results 1 - 20 of 6153 matches

Molecular Parasitology
Swati Agrawal, University of Mary Washington
In Spring 2021, we piloted a mini-CURE where student groups from University of Mary Washington and Georgia State University collaboratively completed research projects as part of a research-intensive course on Molecular Parasitology. The benefits of this approach were immediately obvious as students interacted across institutions, learned from each other's disciplinary expertise while informing their own research with data collected by their collaborators.

CUREnet Exemplary Collection This CURE has been identified as exemplary based on CUREnet's review criteria.
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Data Representation in MATLAB: From Raw Data to Insight
Ray Senior, University of Technology, Jamaica
This activity is a hands-on computational lab where students import, validate, inspect, and visualize three heterogeneous data types (spreadsheets, audio, images) to discover MATLAB's unified array-based data ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Control Systems using Simulink
Kelvin Loutan, The University of Trinidad and Tobago
Analytically solving differential equations representing dynamic systems can sometimes distract from the physical implications of the model. In this module, the dynamic equations of a DC motor are used as a ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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ERP Peak Detective: Introduction to Event-Related Potential Analysis with MATLAB
Brian Rivera, St Olaf College
This scaffolded laboratory activity introduces students with minimal programming experience to Event-Related Potential (ERP) analysis using MATLAB. Students progress from interactive visual exploration of neural ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Discover Plate Tectonics
Angela Daneshmand, Santiago Canyon College
This is a student-centered activity for a synchronous online course where students access google slides to complete during a video conferencing session (eg. Zoom) in break out rooms. Students will be introduced to ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Getting started with Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry
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 ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Dimensional Analysis and Flow Visualization Using MATLAB
Kianoosh Yousefi, The University of Texas at Dallas
In this MATLAB-based activity, students develop two general computational modules, one for automated dimensional analysis using the Buckingham π theorem, and another for streamline and pathline visualization for ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Paleoclimate and Ocean Biogeochemistry
Allison Jacobel, Middlebury College
This module guides students through an examination of how surface ocean productivity relates to global climate on glacial-interglacial timescales and how the availability of ocean nutrients can be correlated with ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Example Bisection Method Problem in MATLAB Grader
Roche de Guzman, Hofstra University
Here's an example of a text book problem in Numerical Methods that was converted to a MATLAB Grader assignment to assess students in a more automated and interactive way. Other problems can be modeled and ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Working with Point Clouds in CloudCompare and Classifying with CANUPO
Sharon Bywater-Reyes, University of Northern Colorado
This exercise will walk you through 1) basic operations and use in CloudCompare, and 2) use of an Open-Source plugin in CloudCompare called CANUPO (http://nicolas.brodu.net/en/recherche/canupo/) that allows for ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Explore Real Data from an Ice Core
Stacy Porter, Denison University; Jason Cervenec, Ohio State University-Main Campus; Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Ohio State University-Main Campus, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center
Ice core data allow students to explore a number of patterns while learning that researchers need to gather and interpret evidence to understand Earth's past. Students will explore core data collected in ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Solving First Order ODE's
Rick Downs, South Seattle College
This assignment is for a Differential Equations course that has students use a computer to solve first order ODE's graphically using slope fields, numerically, and analytically. One part of the assignment has ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Stress Map
James Conder, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
Use earthquakes from the global CMT catalog to look at crustal stresses in a given region of the Earth. Students will download earthquake data from an online catalog and make 2 tectonic maps. One map is of the ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Visualizing Relationships with Data: Exploring plate boundaries with Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and GPS Data in the Western U.S. & Alaska | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
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.

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Lesson 3: The Value of a Water Footprint (Middle School)
Kai Olson-Sawyer, GRACE Communications Foundation
Session 1 of this lesson begins with a quick activity to get students thinking about their direct and virtual water use. It introduces a few new ideas for virtual water use that may surprise students, including the ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Lesson 2: My Water Footprint (Middle School)
Kai Olson-Sawyer, GRACE Communications Foundation
This lesson centers on a deeper exploration of the water footprint associated with food. Students learned in Lesson 1 that virtual water, especially as it relates to food, typically makes up the majority of their ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Activity 10: Feedback Loops Applied
Cameron Weiner, Middlebury College; Lisa Gilbert, Williams-Mystic
Students apply the vocabulary and concepts from the Activity 9: Feedback Loop Introduction to assess and create earth science feedback loops with the LOOPY online modeling program. (Optional) The students then ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Conduction and Convection in a Fin of Uniform Cross Section
Yuxin Zhang, Washington State University
Conduction and convection are two important modes of heat transfer. To understand the mechanisms of these two types of heat transfer processes, we study the temperature distribution in a fin of uniform cross ...

MATLAB Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the Teaching Computation in the Sciences Using MATLAB Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
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.

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Are we in a modern mass extinction?
John Fronimos, Auburn University
A lab activity evaluating the hypothesis that Earth's biosphere is currently undergoing a mass extinction, the so-called "sixth extinction." Students practice quantitative skills by calculating ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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