Topographic Maps part of Career Development:Pursuing an Academic Career 2010:Teaching Activities
This geology lab is designed to teach students the basic skills needed to read, construct, and interpret topographic maps. The goal of this lab is to help students build direct connections between the topography ...

Modeling the oceanic thermohaline circulation with STELLA part of Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
This activity describes the construction of and then experimentation with a STELLA model of the thermohaline circulation in the north Atlantic. Based on a famous paper by Stommel (1961), this model exhibits two ...

Global Patterns part of Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
Based on my research on how best to enhance students' understanding of complex systems, I utilize various activities to support pattern recognition, a fundamental skill to understanding complex systems ...

Marble Bar, Australia part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
The Marble Bar Chert of Western Australia, is one of the earliest sedimentary deposits on Earth. The Marble Bar Chert, along with the presence of pillow basalts, could be an important part of Earth's early ...

Convergent Plate Boundaries part of Videos:Video Gallery
This video describes the physical features that can be observed at three different types of convergent plate boundaries and explains the geologic processes that produce these features. We characterize the distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes associated with convergent boundaries and relate them to subduction of the cold descending plate and the addition of water to the hot overriding plate. We describe the difference between a volcanic arc and an island arc, and discuss why the crust is much thicker where to slabs of continental lithosphere collide. Finally, we use hands and oven mitts to produce simple analogs of the three convergent boundary types. Really.

Personal temperature monitoring to build context for climate justice and community decisions. part of Service Learning:Activities
Climate change is often presented in disconnection from human experiences central to equitable and just decision making. In this activity students use PocketLab temperature probes to collect and analyze data on ...

GPS Velocity Viewer part of Geodesy:Resources
This interactive tool allows users to see GPS/GNSS-measured crustal motions around the globe in a wide range of reference frames. The default view shows horizontal motions in the North American reference frame but users can choose to add vertical motions, earthquakes epicenters, plate boundaries, volcanic centers, or other reference frames. The tool can also be used as an interface to learn GPS/GNSS station names and download time series data.

Coal, Oil and Natural Gas part of Videos:Video Gallery
This video describes how fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal are formed and where they can be found. We set up side-by-side comparisons of what these materials are made of, how they develop, and the settings where they are preserved. We discuss how US consumption and production trends for oil and coal have changed in recent years.

The Scientific Process part of Videos:Video Gallery
Science can help us address environmental challenges such as rising sea levels, the threat of natural hazards, access to resources, and changes to our climate system. This video uses a variety of examples from the geosciences and real life to provide an introduction to the processes of science. We discuss quantitative and qualitative data in terms of the composition of Earth's atmosphere and rocks formed by volcanoes. We describe interpretation using examples such as a large historical earthquake in the Pacific Northwest and the relationship between student grades and class attendance. Finally, we include a short activity for you to practice making observations, generating hypotheses, and making predictions.

Tectonic Plates part of Videos:Video Gallery
In this video we describe the three major compositional layers of Earth and the characteristics of a tectonic plate which is composed of lithosphere representing parts of the crust and mantle. The lithosphere is divided into pieces we call tectonic plates. Ah, you say, but can you demonstrate what you mean using an orange? Why, yes, yes we can. After the orange demo, we illustrate how to use maps of earthquake locations to draw outlines of Earth's major tectonic plates and give them names. Following the video we want you to be able to take a blank map of the world and draw a reasonable sketch of where the major plate boundaries are located.