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Activities

Materials for Lab and Class



Results 1 - 10 of 402 matches

Detecting Cascadia's changing shape with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
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.

Episodic tremor and slip: The Case of the Mystery Earthquakes | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
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.

Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
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.

Paleoclimate and Ocean Biogeochemistry part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Allison Jacobel, Middlebury College
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 ...

Bomb Cyclones - They're Explosive! part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Jacqui Degan, Cape Fear Community College
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 ...

Plate Tectonics: GPS Data, Boundary Zones, and Earthquake Hazards part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Christopher Berg, Orange Coast College; Beth Pratt-Sitaula, EarthScope Consortium; Julie Elliott, Michigan State University
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 ...

Frequency of Large Earthquakes part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Using the IRIS Earthquake Browser tool, students gather data to support a claim about how many large (Mw 8+) earthquakes will happen globally each year. This activity provides scaffolded experience downloading data and manipulating data within a spreadsheet.

3D View from a Drone | Make a 3D Model From Your Photos part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Using cameras mounted to drones, students will design and construct an experiment to take enough photos to make a 3-dimensional image of an outcrop or landform in a process called structure from motion (SfM). This activity has both a hands-on component (collecting data with the drone) and a computer-based component (creating the 3-dimensional model).___________________Drones can take photos that can be analyzed later. By planning ahead to have enough overlap between photos, you take those individual photos and make a 3-dimensional image!In this activity, you guide the students to identify an outcrop or landform to study later or over repeat visits. They go through the process to plan, conduct, and analyze an investigation to help answer their science question.The Challenge: Design and conduct an experiment to take enough photos to make a 3-dimensional image of an outcrop or landform, then analyze the image and interpret the resulting 3-d image.For instance they might wish to study a hillside that has been changed from a previous forest fire. How is the hillside starting to shift after rainstorms or snows? Monitoring an area over many months can lead to discoveries about how the erosional processes happen and also provide homeowners, park rangers, planners, and others valuable information to take action to stabilize areas to prevent landslides.

Lake Mixing Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
This module was initially developed by Carey, C.C., J.L. Klug, and R.L. Fuller. 1 August 2015. Project EDDIE: Dynamics of Lake Mixing. Project EDDIE Module 3, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/lake-mixing.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Stratified lakes exhibit vertical gradients in organisms, nutrients, and oxygen, which have important implications for ecosystem structure and functioning. Mixing disrupts these gradients by redistributing these ...

Climate Change Effects on Lake Temperatures part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Climate change is modifying the thermal structure of lakes around the globe. Because it is difficult to predict how lakes will respond to the many different aspects of climate change (e.g., altered temperature, ...