Wheel of... Geology! part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Games:Examples
Rebecca Teed, Wright State University-Main Campus
This quiz game is intended to help students review for an upcoming exam. Topics of questions are randomly determined by spinning a wheel. Teams answer questions using electronic CPS handhelds. -

Understanding Radioactivity in Geology: The Basics of Decay part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Christina Stringer—University of South Florida, Tampa FL 33620 This activity was developed for Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum. National Science Foundation, DUE 0442629.
PowerPoint module leading students through creation and manipulation of spreadsheet to forward model an example of exponential decay—the number of remaining unpopped kernels of popcorn in a bag of popping popcorn.

Lab using Volcano Scenarios: Hazard Maps and Communicating Risk part of Student Learning: Observing and Assessing:Activities
LeeAnn Srogi, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
This is a lab activity in which small groups of students work with maps, rocks, photographs of volcanic deposits, and textual data to construct a hazard map and a risk communication plan for a specific volcano. Each group is assigned a "volcano scenario," which is based on real volcanoes.

Challenging Pre-Conceptions part of Metacognition:Activities
Perry Samson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Students carry into class pre-conceptions based on stories they've heard, articles they've read and experiences they've had. One of the best opportunities to teach metacognition is at a 'gotcha' moment when they come to realize their pre-conception is amiss.

Peer Instruction part of Metacognition:Activities
Developed by Perry J. Samson Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences University of Michigan
Peer instruction may offer some of the richest opportunities for metacognitive teaching. Reciprocal (peer) teaching forces the instructor to use a whole series of metacognitive processes such as determining what ...

What Do You Know Now? part of Metacognition:Activities
Developed by Perry J. Samson Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, University of Michigan
An opportunity to offer metacognitive teaching arises from the simple question "what do you know now that you didn't before (whatever)"? This simple question can be asked after a reading, a lecture, a lab or other unit of student activity. The thrust is to force the student to consider what they've been exposed to and reflect on what they've learned. Did the activity change their opinion? Did this activity help them identify an analogy?

Introduction to the methods of geoscience part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities
Anne Egger, Central Washington University
In this activity, students are introduced to the methods of inquiry in the Earth sciences and how they differ from what is classically taught in school science.

Rates of Change and Deep Time in the Middle Grades Classroom part of Rates and Time:GSA Activity Posters
Fred Siewers, Western Kentucky University
The nature and scientific measurement of geological and cosmological time are among the most misunderstood and difficult to teach concepts in all of K-12 science education. To address this issue, a multi-disciplinary team of geologists, astronomers and education professionals at Western Kentucky University developed a series of professional development workshops for pre- and in-service middle grades teachers. The participants clearly advanced their content understanding of geological and cosmological time and the implementation plans received clearly show a desire to apply many of the activities learned in the workshop.

Relative Dating of Geologic Materials part of Teacher Preparation:Resource Collections:Activities
Steve Mattox, Grand Valley State University
This lessons allows students to constuct the basic principals used to understand relative geologic time and the skills used to construct the geologic time scale.

Geological Map Problem part of Student Learning: Observing and Assessing:Activities
Robert Filson, Green River Community College
This is a lab activity that is designed to help introductory, non-science majors integrate their geological knowledge near the end of the course. In this activity, students work in self-selected groups of up to four per group on the history of a sketch geological map.