History of the Gulf of Mexico "Dead" Zone
Martin Farley, University of North Carolina at Pembroke
Student analysis of the last 1000 years of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxia zone (informally "dead" zone) by using relative abundance of low-oxygen tolerant benthic foraminifera. In this example of ...

Anoxic Events - Instructor's Guide | Data Explorations
This exercise is a case study that, if used in full, takes students through the entire learning cycle from invitation to reflection as applied to a dead zone on the Oregon continental shelf. Pieces of the exercise ...

Unit 6.2 - Biogeochemical Examples
Adam Hoffman, University of Dubuque
In this week-long unit students will explore Critical Zone function and dynamics as they relate to nutrient cycling in agricultural systems and nutrient pollution into aquatic systems. This unit is generally ...

Episodic tremor and slip: The Case of the Mystery Earthquakes | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Shelley Olds, UNAVCO
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.

Rally Speeches for Coastal Optimism
Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
Storytelling is an effective way to communicate what is happening along our local-to-international coastal zones. However, most of the stories students hear are ones of "doom and gloom." Therefore, ...

Module 4: Food and Water
Gigi Richard, Fort Lewis College
In this module, students will be introduced to the connections between water and agriculture. The first part of the module (4.1) explores how water is essential for growing food and how water is embedded in all of ...

Hypoxia in Coastal Marine Ecosystems
Annette Brickley (NES-LTER Education & Outreach Coordinator), Kathy Browne (Rider University), Gabi Smalley (Rider University)
Aquatic ecosystems are home to a complex intersection of physical and biological factors and an intersection of natural and anthropogenic factors. In the Chesapeake Bay, low oxygen events have occurred periodically ...

Virtual Marine Sediment Core Collection
Kristen St. John, James Madison University
A primary objective of marine science classes is to learn the location and formation of ocean sediment types. Nearly 50 years of scientific ocean drilling has produced a tremendous scientific collection of cores ...

Nutrient Monitoring in the Chesapeake Bay
Akinyele Oni and Niangoran Koissi; Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland
The Chesapeake Bay waters receive input from rivers and streams from areas of Washington D.C, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and some parts of New York and Pennsylvania. Historically, humongous ...

Flooding, flood risks, and what populations are impacted
Kaatje van der Hoeven Kraft, Whatcom Community College
In this lab, students learn about four different types of flood: flash floods, regional floods, storm surges, and tsunami. They then explore the human experience of flooding and who is impacted the most by flooding ...