Modeling the carbon cycle of the anthropocene part of Activity Collection
Students use an Excel sheet to complete forward and inverse models of changes in carbon distribution between atmosphere, ocean and the biosphere from 1751 to the present and several centuries into the future. The model is given as a mostly complete package, into which students input emissions data in various sensitivity tests.

Comparing Carbon Calculators part of Teaching Methods:Teaching with Data:Examples
Carbon calculators, no matter how well intended as tools to help measure energy footprints, tend to be black boxes and can produce wildly different results, depending on the calculations used to weigh various ...

An Assessment of Hillslope Stability Using the Factor of Safety part of Activity Collection
In this homework assignment students are asked to consider the balance of forces on a hill slope using the Factor of Safety.

What is the fate of CO2 produced by fossil fuel combustion? part of Activity Collection
A box model is used to simulate the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the industrial era and predict the future increase in atmospheric CO2 levels during the next century.

Using a Mass Balance Model to Understand Carbon Dioxide and its Connection to Global Warming part of Activity Collection
Students explore the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 40 years with an interactive on-line model.

Lithospheric Density part of Teaching Methods:Teaching with SSAC:Examples
Students learn about the weighted mean by building spreadsheets that apply this concept to the average density of the oceanic lithosphere.

Bubbles in Magmas part of Teaching Methods:Teaching with SSAC:Examples
SSAC Physical Volcanology module. Students build a spreadsheet and apply the ideal gas law to model the velocity of a bubble rising in a viscous magma.

How Do We Estimate Magma Viscosity? part of Teaching Methods:Teaching with SSAC:Examples
SSAC Physical Volcanology module. Students build a spreadsheet to examine how magma viscosity varies with temperature, fraction of crystals, and water content using the non-Arrhenian VFT model.

Carbon Sequestration in Campus Trees part of Teaching Methods:Teaching with SSAC:Examples
Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module. Students use allometric relationships to calculate tree mass from trunk diameter in a stand of trees in the Pacific Northwest.

Shifting Sands: Quantifying Shoreline and Dune Migration at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore part of Teaching Methods:Teaching with SSAC:Examples
Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module/Geology of National Parks course. Students use weighted averages and data from air photos from 1939 to 2005 to calculate the rate of retreat of the shoreline and the advance of the front of dunes along the shoreline.