Laurel Goodell: Teaching Living on the Edge

Unit 1 and 2, combined to comprise a 3-hour lab on Hazards and Risk at Transform Plate Boundaries

• Preworks for Units 1 and 2 were combined into one pre-lab assignment that students brought to their lab session. It is important to introduce and discuss the California Earthquake Probability map as part of the prework. This sets the stage and gives an impetus for doing the probability calculations in the classroom activity.
• Unit 1 and Unit 2 classroom activities were combined into a single lab handout.
• Students were particularly engaged in the school site evaluation activity and took quite an interest in "their" sites.

Units 3 and 4, combined to comprise a 3-hour lab on Hazards and Risk at Divergent Plate Boundaries

• This lab went particularly well. Students were intrigued by the idea of underwater volcanism, and really seemed to enjoy the Unit 4 Eyjafjallajokull activity—and the idea that volcanoes give out warning signs, unlike earthquakes.
• The Unit 3 prework was used for a pre-lab assignment for this lab, with the addition of the Eyjafjallajokull pronunciation question from the Unit 4 prework. The rest of the Unit 4 prework was done as a group after the Unit 3 activity and before the Unit 4 activity.
• I added a "Jelloea" activity to Unit 4 in order to further illustrate volcano inflation prior to eruption, and demonstrate that intrusion and/or volcanism often involves permanent changes to a volcano's shape. This activity is an extension of a NASA activity that I have used over the years, in which syringes of red-colored water are injected into the base of a gelatin "volcano," making dikes and lava flows. We modified the activity further by adding push pins to the gelatin volcano to represent GPS stations (or tiltmeters), and imagining the distance between GPS stations (or the tilt of tiltmeters) changing as intrusion/volcanism progresses. This is perhaps redundant to the "thought experiment" in the Unit 4 activity, but it is illustrative (and fun) nonetheless.

Units 5 and 6, combined to comprise a 3-hour lab on Hazards and Risk at Convergent Plate Boundaries

• The Unit 5 prework was used for the pre-lab assigment for this lab.
• During the lab session, we did the Unit 5 activity, the Unit 6 prework and the Unit 6 activities in succession.
• At first, students in the "seismology" expert group had trouble reviewing their data sets, and I realized they did not know how to read a drum-type seismic record. That is, they did not realize it was time series arranged in a "spiral" pattern, had a beginning and an end, and timing marks etc., and did not really understand how the record was generated. Luckily, I happen to have a stack of old drum recordings left over from when we used to have such an instrument in the building—many with remote earthquake signals. So I pulled them out and demonstrated how a drum recorder worked, which immediately clarified things.
• Likewise, students in the Unit 3 tiltmeter group had trouble with interpreting their data—understanding the radial versus tangential components and that you had to know where the station was to interpret the data. In our revisions, we included additional material to the data sets to clarify this for students.
• Students were particularly engaged in seeing what happened to "their sites" when Mount Rainier erupted.

Before the workshop

A week before the workshop, we emailed teachers asking them, if possible, to bring a laptop with Google Earth installed. Instructions for doing so were provided: Getting Started with Google Earth (Acrobat (PDF) 70kB Sep27 14). If teachers did not have a computer available to them, we lent them one from the university for the week.

Pre-Unit work (Monday)

Since this was not a standard undergraduate institutional setting, we needed to give teachers the background necessary to getting the most out of the Living on the Edge module. Thus the first day of the workshop was spent on pre-unit activites including:

• DIscussing the general concept of risk. Participants were asked to name risky situations (non-geologic as well as geologic examples), then describe why they were risky, and finally propose strategies that would increase the risk as well as strategies that would reduce the risk. Proposing these strategies generally requires an understanding the processes/principles underlying the risk.
• Putting the concept of risk in the context of "Sustainability: Living on the Edge." Participants understood the need to understand the underlying geologic processes at work at active plate boundaries.
• Most of the rest of the day was spent learning/reviewing the principles behind plate tectonics, using Google Earth exercises developed by the author and modified from Using Google Earth to Explore Plate Tectonics.
• Reviewing the general characteristics of transform, divergent and convergent plate boundaries.

Units 1 and 2 on Transform Plate Boundaries (Tuesday)

• In succession, we went through the Unit 1 prework, Unit 1 activities, Unit 2 prework and Unit 2 activities.
• Things went much more smoothly than my first piloting with the undergraduate course (see above) because we used materials that had been revised as a result of that experience.
• As a result of the Monday activities, teachers were mostly comfortable using Google Earth, but some preferred working on paper versions of the activities that had a GE version. Things were flexible enough that everyone could work in the format with which they were most comfortable.
• The luxury of time cannot be overemphasized. This especially was apparent with the Unit 2 discussion of deciding which schools to retrofit, after evaluating the San Francisco school sites for seismic vulnerability. It took on the atmosphere of a public discussion at a town hall meeting, and participants realized the difficulty of making such decisions about using limited resources, and based on incomplete information. (e.g. "Should we retro fit the most vulnerable schools? Or instead focus resources on the least vulnerable sites and move school populations?")
• Final project work: A final project was introduced, to be presented on the last day of the workshop. A laminated copy of the This Dynamic Planet map was posted in the classroom, on which 15 stickers were placed on various communities on active plate boundaries (e.g. Izmit, Turkey; Easter Island; Concepcion, Chile). Teachers placed their initials on one of the stickers to mark their particular project for the week.

Unit 3 and 4 on Divergent Plate Boundaries (Wednesday)

• In succession, we went through the Unit 3 prework, Unit 3 activities, Unit 4 prework and Unit 4 activities.
• We had time to do an extended version of the supplemental "Jelloea" activity (see description above) in small groups, which was a great success. This greatly facilitated understanding of the Unit 4 GPS data from Eyjafjallajokull.
• There was a range in comfort in various quantitative aspects, ranging from a teacher who had an undergraduate degree in geology and was quantitatively adept, to a few who had a lot of trouble interpreting quantitative data. This was usually overcome by individual tutorials by myself or the lead teacher, or by grouping the participants in various ways so they could help each other.
• Final project work: At the end of the day, time was given for teachers to research their project site. This included defining the plate boundary setting and researching past events, particular vulnerabilities and/or value, mitigation strategies, etc.

Units 5 and 6 on Convergent Plate Boundaries (Thursday)

• In succession, we went through the Unit 5 prework, Unit 5 activities, Unit 6 prework and Unit 6 activities.
• Unit 5 and 6 materials are particularly effective in that participants really do become "experts" in their analysis and interpretation of data, because of the way the exercise is scaffolded. Having to teach their area of expertise to members of the other expert groups is a particularly good way to reinforce this.
• Participants become interestingly frustrated at not having all the information that they would like—just like scientists in real life.
• Final project work: participants were given time to self-organize into groups of 2-4 with similar project settings and then tasked with putting together a presentation to give on Friday, the last day of the workshop. We ended up having four groups: one focusing on earthquake risk at transform boundaries, one on volcanism at divergent boundaries, one on volcanism at convergent boundaries, and one on tsunami risk at convergent boundaries.

Post-Unit work (Friday)

• Final project work and final presentations: Participants finished work on the presentations and gave them to the group as well as to a few other Geosciences Department members and representatives of the teacher preparation program.