Initial Publication Date: November 18, 2016
Phillip G. Resor: Using Earth's Thermostat in Dynamic Earth at Wesleyan University
About this Course
An introductory general education course for non-majors that also serves as one of 4 gateways to the major.
32
students
One 80 minute session and one 3 hour session
Syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) 258kB Sep12 16)
The Earth is a dynamic planet, as tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions make tragically clear. The very processes that lead to these natural disasters, however, also make life itself possible and create things of beauty and wonder. In this course we will study the forces and processes that shape our natural environment. Topics range in scale from the global pattern of mountain ranges to the atomic structure of minerals and in time from billions of years of Earth history to the few seconds it takes for a fault to slip during an earthquake. Hands-on activities and short field trips complement lectures to bring the material to life--so put on your hiking boots and get ready to explore our planet.
Course Goals:
After this course students will:
- Be able to interpret landscapes and rocks to infer the processes that formed them.
- Be able to describe natural processes associated with disasters and critically evaluate media reports of these events.
- Develop basic observational and analysis skills that will apply to whatever endeavors they choose to pursue in the future.
Topics:
- Formation of the solar system
- Plate tectonics
- Igneous rocks and volcanoes
- Earthquakes and crustal deformation
- Climate and atmosphere
- Weathering and soils
- Landscapes and sedimentary environments (rivers, coasts)
- Deep time and earth evolution
- Humans as geologic agents
A Climate System Introduction for Geology Students
My course is an introductory physical geology course that blends hands-on activities that might bet traditionally covered in a separate lab with lecture. I believe that an understanding of the climate system is important for my students in order to understand surface processes, and global change. The interactive and hands-on nature of the module led students to develop a clear understanding of Earth's radiation balance and the importance of the atmosphere in maintaining this balance. Students successfully applied this knowledge later in the semester when discussing temporal and spatial patterns of weathering and sedimentary environments. The use of volcanic forcing in the module's capstone was a nice connection to solid earth topics covered earlier in my course.
"My students are all very aware of climate change. The activities in this module helped them to develop a clearer understanding of the physical processes of the climate system, their interactions and how perturbations to this system can lead to global changes."
My Experience Teaching with InTeGrateMaterials
I used the materials as written, but due to the structure of my course meeting times I decided to teach the units focused on the radiation balance (1 and 4) in the first 3 hour class period and then moved on to the atmospheric focused units (2, 3, 5, and 6) in the second week.
Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course
My course is 13 weeks long and the module was taught in weeks 5 and 6. This module served as a bridge between solid Earth topics covered in the first 4 weeks and surface process topics covered in weeks 7-10. Module material was referenced in discussions of weathering and soil development in the week following the module and in discussions of global change in the last 3 weeks of the course.
Unit 1
- Since I was planning on teaching Units 1 and 4 back to back I had students sit in their specialty jigsaw groups (see Unit 4 description) at the start of class.
- After a brief introduction to the module, I asked students to complete the concept sketch pre-survey to evaluate their prior knowledge of the climate system. I collected and scanned these sketches so that the students and I could reflect on how their understanding of the climate system improved by the end of the module.
- I added a slide to foster a discussion on the recently released results from NASA reporting that 2015 had been the hottest year on record to provide an additional introductory hook to the unit.
- After a brief discussion of the concept of anomaly, the students proceeded to plot the global temperature data for their group's assigned decade (9 groups assigned decades between 1900 and 2010, making sure I assigned decades in the unit slides).
- Students completed their plotting, constructed their best-fit lines and made their prediction for 2020 in ~10 minutes.
- Some students struggled with how to define a best-fit line for their data set.
- I tabulated the students' temperature predictions on the board to capture the range of predictions during our discussion of the activity.
- In part 2, students were not able to access the blackbody calculator on their phones, but I had a handout ready just in case this happened.
- Some students struggled with the concept of a perfect blackbody. In the future I will plan to have additional demos and/or examples to help illustrate this concept.
Unit 2
- I taught this Unit after Units 1 and 4.
- We started class with student's reporting their calculation of Earth's effective temperature based on the simple radiation balance presented at the end of Unit 1.
- The result of the calculation is much colder than Earth's actual temperature and many students correctly hypothesized that this was due to the greenhouse effect.
- The think-pair-share exercises with the theoretical (blackbody) and transmitted radiation led the students to correctly identify the primary greenhouse gases and their effect on the radiation balance and to amend their climate concept sketch appropriately.
- The students worked through the CO2 handout without many troubles and we wrapped up the class with discussions of these data as well as the water vapor question.
Unit 3
- Due to time constraints I had to cut this unit a bit short (~ 30 minutes). I did this by cutting the systems portion off after the CO2 solubility example and jumping to the description of the volcano assignment. I still had to rush to finish on time.
- The slides walked the students through the process of defining the polarity of connections and feedback loops.
- Based on assessment results, the students could have used more practice in defining systems from scratch, including components and couplings. Many students continued to confuse the polarity of a connection with the direction of change due to a perturbation or to define components as changes in the system rather than quantities or reservoirs.
- Toward the end of class I used the slides to introduce the climate effects of large volcanic eruptions and the assignment for Unit 6. I added a brief introduction to finding information in the geosciences here (specific to my institution).
Unit 4
- I taught this module immediately after Unit 1 since the requisite background had already been covered (radiation balance in 1D). Although this worked, I think the students would have been better prepared for the activity after a little more reflection on the material from Unit 1.
- I assigned the 32 students in my class to 9 specialty groups (3 groups of 3-4 students each for each of the three specialties) by handing out small strips of paper with their assignments as they walked in the door. Students sat at tables with their group members. (We have folding tables and chairs with wheels that make changing from lecture-style to group-work or seminar set-ups quite easy.)
- The discussion regarding the global distribution of climate change impacts was very effective. It would have been good to return to this map at the end of the activity so that students could see if they agreed with their original hypotheses after leaning about the global energy budget and circulation.
- I used the lights at night map to discuss how we can turn image data into annotated (concept sketch) maps. With more time this could be run as a think pair share with a more extended discussion of what makes an effective map. Some students seemed to struggle with this abstraction, particularly how to decide what to include/exclude from the original map.
- During the specialty map analysis students were actively engaged in discussing the patterns they observed in their map and their causes. My two student assistants and I roamed around the room observing groups, making suggestions, and answering questions. I provided colored pencils to help students make attractive and effective maps.
Unit 5
- Unit 5 was taught in the same class period as Unit 4.
- After a short break students regrouped into their specialty groups.
- The students took turns presenting their specialty group maps to their peers and then began to synthesize the data.
- Students found it challenging to evaluate the radiation balance from their graph and map data, which led to a brief interruption of group work and a whole class discussion of the topic before students resumed their synthesis.
- We ended the class with a whole class discussion of the radiation balance and the factors that drive spatial variability. I led the summary discussion following the order of the longitudinal slices in the unit slide presentation, but used the student's maps and graphs projected with a document camera for the visual cues and asked the student groups to describe their observations and interpretations.
- It would be nice to end by returning to the graph of climate change effects discussed at the start of Unit 4.
- I ended the class with visual prompts to get students thinking about the take home questions on seasonal and cloud effects.
Unit 6
- As students entered the room I had them sit in groups based on the volcano they had been assigned (by last name, as suggested).
- The students spent ~10 minutes synthesizing their observations. I then called on groups to provide various aspects of the summary, which I recorded on the board. A possible alternative/addition to this assignment would be to have students submit the URLs for their images prior to class so that the instructor could have a document with the links and students could use the images they wanted to support their summary presentations. I used the relevant Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program web pages to start each discussion (http://volcano.si.edu/).
- After the summary discussion I used the second slide set to introduce the capstone assignment. There were many questions regarding the requirements of this assignment and the process of building a conceptual model over the following week.
Optional material
- I taught the optional atmospheric circulation jigsaw in a second extended period.
- Students were pre-assigned to specialty and synthesis groups. As they entered the classroom they sat at the table for their specialty group.
- We started with a brief review of the radiation balance and mechanisms of heat transfer.
- Next we discussed the data and their sources. This material could be assigned as a pre-class reading.
- Students seemed to find the specialty map data fairly straightforward to interpret. The vertical wind groups had some questions about the meaning of highest and lowest for their data.
- After a short break students regrouped into synthesis groups, which were assigned latitudinal bands associated with each of the major atmospheric circulation cells.
- The students had some difficulty translating their data into map and cross section views.
- The groups assigned to the Hadley cell latitudes (0-30) found the exercise fairly straightforward, but the groups with the other bands, in particular the polar groups, had a much harder time seeing the meridional (N-S) signal in their data. The 12 kilometer winds were dominated by zonal (E-W) flow associated with the jet streams.
- Groups presented their maps in the order shown in the slide set using a document camera. We discussed the Coriolis effect after the first group presented their maps.
- The summary diagrams provided both a visualization of idealized atmospheric circulation as well as evidence for this circulation in the data, but were confusing to some students.
- I ended the class by introducing the take-home assignment asking students to connect atmospheric circulation to precipitation patterns. This assignment added a nice societal connection to the discussion.
Assessments
I collected and graded the student assignments for the radiation jigsaw and optional atmospheric circulation jigsaw as well as the volcano take-home and capstone assignment. Students also completed a number of in-class and take home assignments that were not graded (self or formative assessments). The students expressed anxiety about the number of assignments and a lack of clarity in the instructions for the assignments. We are addressing both of these problems in our revisions.
Outcomes
I hoped that by using this module in my course that students would have a clearer understanding of the basic workings of the climate system and how it responds to a variety of forcings, including increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration associated with fossil fuel burning. Based on our discussions of global change later in the semester as well as performance on exam questions I would say that the module was a success.
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