Abstract

UNAVCO Education and Community Engagement has developed learning modules and supplemental materials focused on geodesy and geodetic applications that are freely available to educators and the public. In this Share-a-thon, we will share a suite of resources for your courses (higher education and secondary level). GEodesy Tools for Societal Issues (GETSI) teaching materials feature geodetic data and quantitative skills applied to societally important issues (climate change, natural hazards, water resources, environmental management). The UNAVCO Tectonic Motions posters display velocities of high precision Global Positioning System (GPS) stations on maps of Alaska and the Western United States. Using these posters, students are able to describe how the surface of Earth is changing over time by interpreting the vectors of GPS data. Infographic posters can be displayed in labs and as general learning supplements: "What GPS Can Tell Us About Earth" explores how scientists can use GPS to measure snow depth, sea level, and more; "What is Geodesy?" introduces students to how geodesy works and what we can do with geodesy; "Measuring the Changing Shape of Our Earth" explains InSAR, a remote sensing geodetic technique for measuring topography and deformation.

Context

College and secondary-level educators use these resources in geoscience and hazards courses. The resources have been used in single-period explorations and as multi-week modules.

Why It Works

Few geodetic examples exist in mainstream textbooks and lab manuals for introductory and majors-level undergraduate courses. The science of geodesy has produced discoveries of major societal impact related to climate change, water resource management, and mitigation of natural hazards. The resources provided in this share-a-thon represent a cross-section of geodetic methods to address critical topics, many of which have undergone rigorous review and classroom testing using a modified InTeGrate assessment model.