Unit 1: Introduction to the Geologic Timeline & Mass Extinctions
Rebecca Teed, Wright State University-Main Campus
In this unit, students will identify mass extinctions as paleontologists have done and recognize and understand the "pull of the recent," that is, the human tendency to know more about events closer to ...

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 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 ...

Unit 2.2 - Basic Critical Zone Concepts
Ashlee Dere, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Susan Gill, Stroud Water Research Center
Students will learn about geoscience-specific methods used to analyze data in the Critical Zone from data-driven activities and short presentations by their peers. The topics include the use of carbon isotopes, ...

Unit 4: GPS and infinitesimal strain analysis
Vince Cronin, Baylor University (Vince_Cronin@baylor.edu) Phil Resor, Wesleyan University (presor@wesleyan.edu)
Students work with GPS velocity data from three stations in the same region that form an acute triangle. By investigating how the ellipse inscribed within this triangle deforms, students learn about strain, strain ...

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. -

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 ...

Activity 4.2 - Mining Sand
Joy Branlund, Northeastern Junior College
Students will analyze data and answer questions regarding the weathering, erosion, and deposition responsible for concentrating shoreline titanium placer deposits in Florida.

Unit 2: Causes of Mass Extinction
Rebecca Teed, Wright State University-Main Campus
During Unit 2, students will learn about the causes of two past mass extinctions and discuss the controversies surrounding these causes and the evidence upon which the theories in the debates are based. Before ...

Unit 4: Anatomy of a tragic slide: Oso Landslide case study
Becca Walker, Mt. San Antonio College
Landslides can have profound societal consequences, such as did the slide that occurred near Oso, Washington in 2014. Forty-three people were killed and entire rural neighborhood was destroyed. In this unit, ...