Lesson 2: My Water Footprint (Middle School)
Kai Olson-Sawyer, GRACE Communications Foundation
This lesson centers on a deeper exploration of the water footprint associated with food. Students learned in Lesson 1 that virtual water, especially as it relates to food, typically makes up the majority of their ...

Virtual Geologic Mapping Exercise at Lough Fee
Steve Whitmeyer, James Madison University
The Virtual Geologic Mapping Exercise is designed to simulate an introductory field mapping exercise. Students load a KML file in Google Earth that includes real outcrop data in the form of dots and orientation ...

Climate Change: Past & Present, Local & Global
Cheryl Manning, OrbWeaver Consulting, LLC; Rondi Davies, CUNY Queensborough Community College
Average inquiry level: Guided inquiry In this laboratory exercise for introductory geology or environmental science courses, students use data to examine climate change in their local environment. They compare ...

Metamorphic Rock Identification
Katryn Wiese, City College of San Francisco
Metamorphic Rock Identification online (developed for remote learning during COVID-19 pandemic); students will explore the various characteristics of metamorphic rocks and then apply them to identify unknowns.

Activity 9: Feedback Loops Introduction
Cameron Weiner, Middlebury College
Students are introduced to feedback loop vocabulary and experiment with different relationships between reservoirs in simple feedback loops using LOOPY, a free, online modeling program.

Unit 2: Monitoring surface and groundwater supply in central and western US
Jonathan Harvey (Fort Lewis College) and Becca Walker (Mt San Antonio College)
In Unit 2, students learn how the techniques for water budgeting (covered in Unit 1) can be used to monitor both groundwater (High Plains Aquifer) and surface water (western mountain watershed) systems. Students ...

Detecting Cascadia's changing shape with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Research-grade Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allow students to deduce that Earth's crust is changing shape in measurable ways. From data gathered by EarthScope's Plate Boundary Observatory, students discover that the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal British Columbia — the Cascadia region - are geologically active: tectonic plates move and collide; they shift and buckle; continental crust deforms; regions warp; rocks crumple, bend, and will break.

Seafloor Spreading: Bathymetry, Anomalies, and Sediments
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students study the bathymetry of the South Atlantic, use magnetic reversals to interpret marine magnetic anomalies, and ...

Erosion in a River
Nicole LaDue, Northern Illinois University
× Formative assessment questions using a classroom response system ("clickers") can be used to reveal students' spatial understanding. Students are shown these diagrams and instructed to ...

Using Carbon Isotopes in Astrobiology: Origin of Life and beyond
Phoebe Cohen, Williams College
Carbon isotopes are used in many different ways by scientists to reconstruct Earth's past. For example, we can use carbon isotopes to determine when life first evolved on Earth, and to learn more about what ...