Unit 3: Field Geophysical Measurements part of Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity
Near-surface geophysical measurements are performed by moving sensors across the earth's surface. Active geophysical sensors transmit a signal into the earth and record a returned signal that contains ...

Wind and Ocean Ecosystems part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Wind has a fundamental impact on ocean ecosystems. Wind drives physical processes, including current development and upwelling through Ekman transport. These physical processes, in turn, have cascading impacts on ...

Unit 1: Exploring Harrier Meadow, an Urban Wetland System part of Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity
Students will conduct a virtual exploration of Harrier Meadow, a salt marsh in the New Jersey Meadowlands. They will identify its vulnerability to pollution, its tidal connection to the Hackensack Estuary and the ...

What's in the Water? Lesson 4: Drinking Water & Environmental Justice part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
In this lesson from the "What's in the Water?" PFAS Contamination Unit", students explore equity in drinking water across the U.S. For homework, students read segments of two recent reports ...

Plate Tectonics: GPS Data, Boundary Zones, and Earthquake Hazards part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Students work with high precision GPS data to explore how motion near a plate boundary is distributed over a larger region than the boundary line on the map. This allows them to investigate how earthquake hazard ...

Unit 3: Codorus Creek Case Study: Measuring and Interpreting Seismic Refraction Data part of Measuring Depth to Bedrock Using Seismic Refraction
This unit presents an applied case study example and the associated concepts related to designing a seismic survey and analyzing the data. It discusses parts of the instrument and presents practical experience ...

Online Discussion Prompts for Introductory Geology part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
This set of 17 online discussion prompts are designed to encourage students to apply, explore, and reflect on course topics. Some are content-specific (e.g. investigate misconceptions about a certain topic or take ...

Unit 4: The Magic of Geophysical Inversion part of Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity
This unit introduces the student to the concept of geophysical inversion, which is the process of estimating the geophysical properties of the subsurface from the geophysical observations. The basic mechanics of ...

Economics: Sea level rise part of PENGUIN:PENGUIN Modules
This module is framed from the perspective of a city planner trying to determine how much to spend on a local seawall given different scenarios of sea level rise and the associated storm surge and higher flood ...

Paleoclimate and Ocean Biogeochemistry part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...

Geoethics Case Study: The Keystone Pipeline--Energy, Jobs or Environment? part of GeoEthics:Activities
A case study page for geoscience educators that examines the ethical dimensions of the Keystone Pipeline project, covering energy needs, environmental impacts, indigenous rights, and climate change, while providing teaching materials and assessment tools to foster ethical decision-making in Earth science courses. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Bomb Cyclones - They're Explosive! part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Storms can have devastating impacts on coastal communities. Typically, tropical storms like hurricanes get the most attention, but there are other types of storms that occur at more northern latitudes that can be ...

Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
This lesson teaches middle and high school students to understand the architecture of GPS—from satellites to research quality stations on the ground. This is done with physical models and a presentation. Then students learn to interpret data for the station's position through time ("time series plots"). Students represent time series data as velocity vectors and add the vectors to create a total horizontal velocity vector. They apply their skills to discover that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is rifting Iceland. They cement and expand their understanding of GPS data with an abstraction using cars and maps. Finally, they explore GPS vectors in the context of global plate tectonics.

Spectral Seismology Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
This module that is based on a conceptual presentation of waveforms and filters. "Spectral Seismology" will engage students using seismic and acoustic signals available through Incorporated Research ...

OGGM-Edu Glaciology Lab 1: What Makes a Glacier? part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
This is a three-part class or lab activity that challenges students to define what a glacier is, how it differs from other parts of the cryosphere (such as sea ice), and what kinds of glaciers there are in the ...

What's in the Water? Lesson 1: Water Cycle and Watersheds part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
In this lesson from "What's in the Water?" PFAS Contamination Unit", students collaboratively explore water and contaminant cycling through the natural environment. They identify pathways each ...

Lesson 3: The Value of a Water Footprint (High School) part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
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 ...

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
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.

Episodic tremor and slip: The Case of the Mystery Earthquakes | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Earthquakes in western Washington and Oregon are to be expected—the region lies in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Offshore, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate subducts under the North American plate, from northern California to British Columbia. The region, however, also experiences exotic seismicity— Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS).In this lesson, your students study seismic and GPS data from the region to recognize a pattern in which unusual tremors--with no surface earthquakes--coincide with jumps of GPS stations. This is ETS. Students model ductile and brittle behavior of the crust with lasagna noodles to understand how properties of materials depend on physical conditions. Finally, they assemble their knowledge of the data and models into an understanding of ETS in subduction zones and its relevance to the millions of residents in Cascadia.

Rally Speeches for Coastal Optimism part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Storytelling is an effective way to communicate what is happening along our local-to-international coastal zones. However, most of the stories students hear are ones of "doom and gloom." Therefore, ...