Biomass conversion into highly useful chemicals
This is CURE based course that aims at bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge in chemistry and its practical applications at solving real-world problems. It gives students an opportunity to construct and synthesize their knowledge and skills by learning to apply theoretical knowledge to practice by the laboratory research. The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with the fundamental concepts of chemistry, synthetic methods and techniques. The emphasis will be on novel catalysts synthesis and evaluating their activity towards biomass conversion to liquid fuel and useful chemicals. Students will design synthesize, deduce identities of the biomass conversion products from chemical and spectral clues, and predict reaction products.

Working with State, National, and Global Petroleum Data
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students work with data on oil production in Illinois, the United States, and the world, creating graphs to interpret data on ...

Renewable Energy Virtual Field Trip
This is a virtual field trip on the subject of renewable energy. The Google Earth slideshow will take you around the world to different key renewable energy sites across the world. Each site will have a quick ...

Oil Drilling Game
Students are each given 100 feet of drilling, to be used on a 144 mile square map under which is an oil trap. Working in teams, they construct cross-sections, based on stratigraphic and fossil data collected by ...

To Drill or Not to Drill? A Case Study in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
To Drill or Not to Drill is a multidisciplinary problem based learning exercise, which intends to increase students' knowledge of a variety of topics through a real world environmental topic. In addition, ...

Is There a Trend in Hurricane Number or Intensity?
This lab guides students through an examination of the hurricane record to determine if there is a trend in hurricane intensity over the past 40 years and introduces some issues related to statistics and ...

Investigating the Effect of Warmer Temperatures on Hurricanes
Students investigate the link between ocean temperatures and hurricane intensity, analyze instrumental and historical data and speculate on possible future changes.

Petroleum Depletion by Inquiry
This is a draft of a guided inquiry activity to help students become aware of the problem of petroleum depletion or peak oil. Students use existing data to make projections of future discoveries and consumption. It ...

Climate Change and Atlantic Hurricanes: A GIS Inquiry
Students make hypotheses about how hurricane numbers, locations, or intensities have been changing, and then use hurricane tracks, wind speed, barometric pressure, and dates to test their hypotheses.

Poleward Heat Transport Jigsaw
Based on great plate tectonic exercise by Sawyer et al. (2005 JGE), this small-group exercise with maps of data about earth's energy balance helps students visualize poleward heat transport.

Consequences of Modern Energy Use: A Remote Sensing analysis of the gulf oil spill using ArcGIS software.
Students download satellite imagery and conduct a remote sensing analysis of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill using ArcGIS software.

Looking for Gas Layers in Anadarko Basin, Oklahoma
The students perform a well log analysis in order to discover gas-bearing layers in a sedimentary basin (Anadarko)

Are Clean Tech Startups Sustainable and/or Circular?
Students apply what they have learned from the common exercise to a clean tech startup company. They map out the lifecycle of the product or service, identify potential impacts in each phase, and evaluate the ...

Structural Analysis of a Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Energy System
This project applies basic geologic skills to the development of a geothermal electrical generation system. I use it in a structural geology, but it would be applicable to any intermediate to advanced level course ...

Tropical Cyclones, Sea Surface Temperature, and Beyond
The activity will use historical data of sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone origin and/or tracks to identify trends. Students use Arc GIS to explore projected SST changes and predict areas where tropical ...

Forecasting Lake Effect Snow in Lake Superior region
This exercise is designed to present the realistic problems of forecasting weather. Lake effect snows are hard to forecast because they depend on information that isn't part of the regular set of information ...

Environment and the Earth Class
The Environment and the Earth class at the University of South Carolina participated in a campus environmental service-learning project where students collected data lighting, water fixtures, recycling bins, and trash in five academic buildings.

The Great Energy Debate
This lesson plan explores the energy debate in the U.S. Students will hold a mock congressional committee meeting and make decisions about public lands and energy resources. -

Oil and Gas Exploration Project
Students play the role of a geologist for an oil and gas exploration company. Given a budget and some basic geological information they are required to bid on leases, explore, drill, and hopefully produce at a ...

Analyzing Hurricanes
The exercise uses GIS to explore historical data on hurricanes (path, strength, name). Students identify trends in hurricane records, the impact of hurricanes on major U.S. cities, and how hurricanes change through ...