Teaching Quantitative Reasoning with the News part of Teaching Methods:Teaching Quantitative Reasoning with the News
Compiled by Stuart Boersma, Central Washington University Based on material written by Bernard L. Madison, Stuart Boersma, Caren L. Diefenderfer, and Shannon W. Dingman. What is Teaching Quantitative Reasoning with ...

Applications of Vector Operators for Surface Atmospheric/Oceanic Processes part of Activity Collection
This lab exercise provides students with activities utilizing vector operations within the context of the atmospheric and oceanic environments.

Air-sea Interactions: Activities in Oceanography part of Activity Collection
This online set of activities help students learn properties of ocean waves, wind-wave relationships and properties of tsunamis.

Mid-level spreadsheeting and complex modeling of real-world scarp evolution part of Activity Collection
This exercise is a second or familiarization exercise in spreadsheeting, but is also a mathematical model for slope evolution. It uses the concept of "erosivity" (generally, the relative ratio of driving and resisting forces) and slope angle to reshape an initial topography. Finally, it asks the students themselves to come up with a real-world situation worth modeling.

Viscosity of the Mantle: Constraints from Post-glacial Rebound part of Activity Collection
This laboratory experiment emphasizes the exponential nature of post-glacial rebound and reinforces the relationship between the rate of rebound and the viscosity of the mantle.

Driving Through Geologic Time - An analogy part of Activity Collection
An analogy of the Earth's history to a cross-country drive.

Exploring Radiometric Dating with Dice part of Activity Collection
An activity in which students use dice to explore radioactive decay and dating and make simple calculations.

Demonstration of radioactive decay using pennies part of Activity Collection
A demonstration (with full class participation) to illustrate radioactive decay by flipping coins. Shows students visually the concepts of exponential decay, half-life and randomness. Works best in large classes -- the more people, the better.

Determining Earthquake Probability and Recurrence from Past Seismic Events part of Activity Collection
A homework/classroom activity where students collect historical earthquake information and use it to forecast the probability of larger earthquakes.

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Rate of Lava Flow part of Activity Collection
Question In 1983, an eruption began at Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii that has proved to be the largest and longest-lived eruption since records began in 1823. Lava has poured out of the volcano at an average rate of ...