Alaska GPS Analysis of Plate Tectonics and Earthquakes part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
This activity introduces students to high precision GPS as it is used in geoscience research. Students build "gumdrop" GPS units and study data from three Alaska GPS stations from the Plate Boundary Observatory network. They learn how Alaska's south central region is "locked and loading" as the Pacific Plate pushes into North America and builds up energy that will be released in the future in other earthquakes such as the 1964 Alaska earthquake.

Earthquake Hazard Maps & Liquefaction: Alaska emphasis part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Ground shaking is the primary cause of earthquake damage to man-made structures. This exercise combines three related activities on the topic of shaking-induced ground instability: a ground shaking amplification demonstration, a seismic landslides demonstration, and a liquefaction experiment. The amplitude of ground shaking is affected by the type of near-surface rocks and soil. Earthquake ground shaking can cause even gently sloping areas to slide when those same areas would be stable under normal conditions. Liquefaction is a phenomenon where water-saturated sand and silt take on the characteristics of a dense liquid during the intense ground shaking of an earthquake and deform. Includes Alaska and San Francisco examples.

Unit 2.1: Geodetic survey of an outcrop for road cut design part of Analyzing High Resolution Topography with TLS and SfM
This unit offers an alternative application for high-resolution topographic data from an outcrop. Using engineering geology methods and data collection from TLS and/or SfM, students design safe "road ...

NAE Grand Challenges Project part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:MATLAB Workshop 2017:Activities
The project requires a group of students to explore one of the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges using MATLAB as a tool. Students explore a grand challenge by researching data and performing ...

Measuring voting districts and distributions part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:MATLAB Workshop 2024:Activities
This project-based activity allows students to use MATLAB to analyze voting district boundaries and their relationship to social and environmental justice. Students recreate geographic borders, calculate centroids, ...

Community Flood Risk Assessment from Rising/Surging Seas Project part of CUREnet:Institutes:Other Institutes (2019-2020):Examples
Globally 634 million people, 10% of the world's population, live in coastal areas less than 10 meters above sea level. According to 2010 census data, 123 million people, 39% of the United States population, live in coastal counties with an estimated increase to this number by 8% in the 2020 census. As natural disasters have been seen to increase in frequency and severity in the past five years coupled with expected sea rises from climate change it is important that anyone involved with the safety and resiliency planning of their organization/community have an understanding of how to scientifically assess risk from flooding in order to mitigate and recover from the effects. This project allows students the ability to develop skills to utilize computer modeling systems and to apply the data to real world communities in examining risk to structures as well as different groups in the community.

Unprecedented part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:MATLAB Workshop 2020:Activities
This project is designed to introduce lower-division science and engineering students to mathematical modelling through the analysis of real-world data related to the novel coronavirus global pandemic. The project ...

Breakeven Analysis Project part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:MATLAB Workshop 2020:Activities
The project requires students to use basic programming skills in MATLAB to write a program that will perform a breakeven analysis for a proposed new elephant house at the local zoo. Students are given parameters ...

Remote Sensing Applications in Hydrology part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:Teaching Materials:Activities
The module offers background content on the fundamentals of remote sensing, but also integrates a set of existing online tools for visualization and analysis of satellite observations. Specifically, students are ...

Numerical Differentiation for Chemical Engineers part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:MATLAB Workshop October 2021:Activities
In this activity students learn to apply appropriate numerical differentation formulas to non-uniformly spaced data. The concept is applied to a chemical engineering problem where the goal is to measure how the ...