Digital poster of rocks and minerals

Aida Farough, Kansas State University

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Peer Reviewed Teaching Activities collection. (view details)

This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection

This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are

Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
Pedagogic Effectiveness
Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page

For more information about the peer review process itself, please see https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html.

Initial Publication Date: May 10, 2017 | Reviewed: May 10, 2019 (see revision history: 2 events)

Summary

This project is designed based on 21st century skills and to help students engage in, experience, explore and evolve science. As a part of the activity students create a digital poster (infographic) using free online websites, such as: Piktochart, Checkthis, Glogster, Infogram, Easelly, Visually. They are not allowed to use powerpoint, learning to use these websites is one of the objectives of the activity.
Students are provided information on Copyright protection and Creative Commons, Referencing and Grading Criteria of the digital poster.
Students are assigned one mineral and 1 rock from each category of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic to describe on the digital poster.
Information provided in the textbook and power points such as physical and chemical properties ( included but not limited to: chemical composition, density, texture, color, etc.) and 1 or 2 images of each sample should be included on the poster. Also they are advised to add the most common uses of the samples or any other information that they find interesting, which they may find this information in class material or they may have to do a little research. If they use sources other than class material, they need to cite their references.

Geology | College Lower (13-14) | Online Ready

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Learning Goals

Content/concepts goals
learn more about rocks and minerals in an online course, their physical and chemical properties and their uses.

Higher order thinking skills goals
Learn a 21st century skill: how to make a digital poster or an infographic.

Other skills goals
searching the internet for cool and interesting properties of some rocks and minerals

Context for Use

Type and level of course
This activity is used for undergraduate online physical geology in the general education cluster, for rock and mineral identification chapters.

Skills and concepts students should have mastered
rock and mineral identification techniques

How the activity is situated in the course
the activity is open for the duration of 4 chapters: minerals, igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks.
The students get a chance to make a partial submission after 2 chapters (minerals and igneous rocks), to receive feedback to assure they are on the right track.