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 ...

Time Scales of Climate Change
Erika Grundstrom, Vanderbilt University; Cara Thompson, Arizona State University at the West Campus; Maya Elrick, University of New Mexico-Main Campus
This activity introduces students to the fact that climate change occurs at timescales of 1 year to 108 years and there are various drivers to explain these changes. It addresses how scientists detect these scales ...

Coal: The Geologic History of a Fossil Fuel and its Function in a Changing Climate
Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim, Front Range Community College
In this experiential laboratory, students explore the fossil fuel, coal, its geologic origins, its role in plate tectonics, and the implications of burning coal for climate change. The lab contains a virtual field ...

Life Through Time: Interactive Time Line
Molly Miller, Vanderbilt University; Krista Castillo, Metro Nashville Parks
We have a color-coded timeline from the formation of the earth to the present at a scale of I inch = 20 million years. Colored zones include: 1) first life;, 2) first complex life; 3) Paleozoic; 4) time during ...

Ordering Geologic Events and Interpreting Geologic History: The Grand Canyon
Jennifer Wenner, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
This activity is designed to have students re-examine rocks they looked at earlier in the semester and use them to interpret some of the geologic history of the Grand Canyon.

Weathering - interrelation of chemical and physical weathering
Anne Carey, Ohio State University-Main Campus

A basic trilobite morphometric exercise
John Taylor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus
A lab exercise and follow-up classroom activity in which students measure some trilobite specimens, evaluate the statistical significance of differences documented in data acquired for two different populations, ...

Plate Motions
Jeffrey Nunn, Louisiana State University
Students are asked to removed the last 40 Ma of ocean crust from an isochron map and then put the plates back together. This exercise helps students see that plates and plate boundaries canNOT be stationary through ...

Video Games as Physical Geology Labs
Ronald Dorn, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
This resource includes a series of laboratory activities associated with geovisualizations that look and play like a video game. The student controls the video game camera and the avatar to interact with DEM ...

Ships that pass in the night: Competition in the fossil record
John Fronimos, Vassar College; Phil Novack-Gottshall, Benedictine University
A lab activity using the Paleobiology Database to produce and interpret diversity curves for brachiopods and bivalves that tests the hypothesis of competitive displacement, as first demonstrated in Gould and ...