Using Google Earth Layers to Understand Local Geomorphology
Ralph Hitz, Tacoma Community College; Peter Selkin, University of Washington-Tacoma Campus
Using Google Earth to understand how geomorphology may control shallow groundwater flooding and surface hydrology.

Environmental Justice in Tacoma: A Non-Majors Qualitative Assessment of Pollution and Public Policy in the Local Community
Jim Gawel, University of Washington- Tacoma
This activity is designed to get non-environmental majors to qualitatively examine their own community for evidence of environmental injustice. Using a mix of evidence from online sources (U.S. Census, EnviroMapper, Toxic Release Inventory, Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, etc.) and field observations, student groups describe the population and pollution sources found within an assigned elementary school district in Tacoma.

Vector data and attributes
Margaret McMillan, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Margaret E. (Beth) McMillan, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Summary This exercise introduces students to methods of creating GIS data. They collect point data using a GPS, and they digitize line data from a ...

Visualizing the impact of storm surge and sea level rise on coastal communities
Eileen Johnson, Bowdoin College

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Students analyze data to study the motion of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. From GPS data, students detect relative motion between the plates in the San Andreas fault zone--with and without earthquakes. To get to that discovery, they use physical models to understand the architecture of GPS, from satellites to sensitive stations on the ground. They learn to interpret time series data collected by stations (in the spreading regime of Iceland), to cast data as horizontal north-south and east-west vectors, and to add those vectors head-to-tail.Students then apply their skills and understanding to data in the context of the strike-slip fault zone of a transform plate boundary. They interpret time series plots from an earthquake in Parkfield, CA to calculate the resulting slip on the fault and (optionally) the earthquake's magnitude.

Introductory Tutorial/Refresher for Basic ArcMap Techniques for Geoscientists, with Emphasis on Working with Raster Data Sets
Barb Tewksbury, Hamilton College; Dave Tewksbury, Hamilton College
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary This series of three activities in tutorial format serves not only as an introduction to ArcGIS for our intro geology, hydrogeology, and structural geology ...

Earthquake Seismograms and Spreadsheets
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students read and interpret seismograms, determine the epicenter of an earthquake by triangulation, and learn how to enter ...

Unit 2: Identifying faulting styles, rates and histories through analysis of geomorphic characteristics (Lidar)
Bruce Douglas, Indiana University-Bloomington; Gareth Funning, University of California-Riverside
Can active faults be identified remotely, based upon their appearance in the landscape? How can the geomorphic features associated with active faults be used to classify and quantify fault movement? In this unit, ...

Tsunami Early Warning Demonstration
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
This hands-on demonstration illustrates how instruments can be used to warn people of a tsunami. The same principles can be applied to earthquake early warning. With an older audience, this is a demonstration that can be used to start a conversation. With a younger audience, this activity is a game.

Life through Time: Investigating biostratigraphy wth the PBDB
Christian George, High Point University
Students learn how to use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to investigate the basic principles of biostratigraphy, including, index fossils and how fossils were used to construct the geologic timescale.