Counting Critters: Using the Paleobiology Database to track fossil diversity through geologic time
Rowan Lockwood, College of William and Mary
Students learn how to use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to develop a diversity curve showing changes in global biodiversity through time. They then use this curve to explore major events in the history of life, ...

Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized Board Game - High School Edition
Rowan Martindale, The University of Texas at Austin
"Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized" can be used as an active learning tool in a class or lab to promote understanding of Earth processes (Geology), deep time, fossils, and the history of life on Earth ...

Introduction to hydrologic model calibration
Matin Rahnamay Naeini, University of California-Irvine
In this exercise, we introduce the concept of model calibration for rainfall-runoff models. We specifically employ a synthetic precipitation data as input to the hydrologic model to generate synthetic runoff. The ...

"Reef Survivor" Board Game - High School Aquatic Sciences Edition (Simple)
Rowan Martindale, The University of Texas at Austin; Enrique Reyes, The University of Texas at Austin; Sabrina Ewald, The University of Texas at Austin
"Reef Survivor" is a board game that can be used as an active learning tool in a class or lab to promote understanding of Earth processes (Geology), Aquatic Sciences, and Marine Biology. The educational ...

Surviving Extinction, A Journey Through Time
Wendy Taylor, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
Explore prehistoric environments over the past 350 million years, make good decisions to avoid deadly predators, and discover real expedition sites as you chart your own path through time. 99% of all species that ...

Reef Builders through Time
Peg Yacobucci, Bowling Green State University-Main Campus
Students will use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to explore the history of reef-building animals through time. They will document diversity and extinction patterns through time for seven reef-building marine ...

Constructing Phylogenetic Trees: The Whippo Story
Scott Cooper, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
An interactive lecture in which students use data on feeding habits and habitat, skeletons, and DNA sequences to draw phylogenetic trees. -

The Great Clade Race - Zombie Island Edition
Rowan Martindale, The University of Texas at Austin; David Goldsmith, Westminster College (UT)
This activity is a modification of the "Great Clade Race" (Goldsmith, 2003). This activity is great for helping students understand cladograms/phylogenies, but the original reinforces some problematic ...

Red Beans and Rice: Slope failure experimental modeling
Tom Hickson, University of St. Thomas (MN)
Students replicate a slope failure experiment published in Science (Densmore et al., 1997) using a simple, acrylic slope failure box in an effort to forge a link between autocyclic processes, long-term landscape ...

Candy Phylogeny
Lisa Whitenack, Allegheny College
Students learn how make phylogenetic trees from morphological data using a variety of candy. Techniques and concepts learned include outgroup analysis, making a character matrix, coding characters, parsimony, ...