Jeffrey D. Thomas

Unit 1: How Do the Methods of Geoscience Compare with THE Scientific Method? part of Exploring Geoscience Methods
This activity introduces geoscientific thinking to a primarily non-geoscience audience. This is the introductory activity of a module designed for pre-service secondary science teachers in a secondary science ...

Unit 3: Discovering Curricular Resources and Teaching Interdisciplinary Lessons that Incorporate the Methods of Geoscience part of Exploring Geoscience Methods
This unit provides pre-service teachers in methods courses with resources for teaching geoscience content and utilizing the methods of geoscience. Pre-service teachers will prepare an annotated bibliography of ...

Exploring Geoscience Methods part of Exploring Geoscience Methods
This module gives pre-service secondary science teachers the opportunity to use and reflect on geoscientific thinking. The module begins with an exploration of how geoscience methods are similar to and different ...

Activity 2.2: Issue Investigation part of Exploring Geoscience Methods
During Activity 2.2, students download, organize, and analyze geoscience data sets of sea level trends, terrestrial ice sheet trends, and intensity of tropical cyclones as well as forecast models of atmospheric CO2 ...

Activity 2.3: Constructing the Argument part of Exploring Geoscience Methods
In Activity 2.3, students make an argument from evidence to address the problem: "To what extent should we build or rebuild coastal communities?" Students work as a team to complete a graphic organizer. ...

Reasons for the Seasons part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities
The inquiry method and meteorological and astronomical online data can be used to elicit the inconsistencies of students' naïve ideas about the "real" reasons for the seasons. The first phase of this two-part investigation uses online meteorological data to identify factors that might explain differences of seasonal temperatures among cities These factors are used to hypothesize why differences of seasonal temperatures occur among cities. During the second phase, the variables and hypotheses that were previously identified in part one are used to design and conduct an inquiry-oriented investigation. Astronomical data is used as part of the investigation to "test" students' hypotheses— conclusions are drawn then communicated.