Online Discussion Prompts for Introductory Geology
Karen Kortz, Community College of Rhode Island; Jessica Smay, San Jose City College
This set of 17 online discussion prompts are designed to encourage students to apply, explore, and reflect on course topics. Some are content-specific (e.g. investigate misconceptions about a certain topic or take ...

Unit 1: Impacts of Land Use
Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Sarah Fortner, Carleton College
In this introductory unit, students will learn about the fundamental role of observation by viewing photographs of both agricultural and non-agricultural (natural) landscapes and making independent observations. ...

The Cosmic Calendar
Erika Grundstrom, Vanderbilt University
In this activity, one takes ALL of time, from the beginning of time (i.e., the Big Bang) all the way up to today, but one compresses it into one year. One can do this for all levels of students depending on how ...

Crater Counting Lab exercise
Kevin Mullins, Coconino County Community College
This lab is designed to teach students how we can estimate the age of other planetary surfaces by counting and size-binning impact craters. It also illustrates some examples of how erosional or deopositional ...

The Dark Side of Mineral Mining
Karen Helgers, Ulster County Community College
Students choose one of four short articles to read about mineral mining, including the impacts of mining on the Native American community in the region. Each article highlights a specific example where the ...

Climate, Climate Change, and Racism
Kaatje van der Hoeven Kraft, Whatcom Community College
Students engage in a discussion about climate change by both watching videos and reading an article to learn about the science behind climate change and some of the impacts of our warming climate. They then post ...

Lab 7: Is Your Region Ready for a Drought?
The lab activity described here was created by Betsy Youngman of Phoenix Country Day School and LuAnn Dahlman of TERC for the EarthLabs project. Summary and Learning Objectives In this lab, students apply the ...

Living with Sinkholes: Fragile Foundation
Catherine Pappas-Maenz, Dawson College
Catherine Pappas-Maenz, Dawson College, Montreal, Canada Summary Students are given a brief scenario based on an actual event, designed to illustrate specific ethical issues associated with science. After reading ...

Presenting science to the public: The ethics of outreach
Joy Branlund, Northeastern Junior College
Joy Branlund, Southwestern Illinois College Summary This case study involves class discussion about (a) the environmental concerns of developing a new industrial project (in this case, a new mine in Minnesota), ...