Economics: Sea level rise
Lea Fortmann, University of Puget Sound
This module is framed from the perspective of a city planner trying to determine how much to spend on a local seawall given different scenarios of sea level rise and the associated storm surge and higher flood ...

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Roger Groom, Mt. Tabor Middle School; Andy Newman, Georgia Institute of Technology; Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Cate Fox-Lent, UNAVCO; Nancy West, Quarter Dome Consulting; David Thesenga, Front Range Community College
Students analyze data to study the motion of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. From GPS data, students detect relative motion between the plates in the San Andreas fault zone--with and without earthquakes. To get to that discovery, they use physical models to understand the architecture of GPS, from satellites to sensitive stations on the ground. They learn to interpret time series data collected by stations (in the spreading regime of Iceland), to cast data as horizontal north-south and east-west vectors, and to add those vectors head-to-tail.Students then apply their skills and understanding to data in the context of the strike-slip fault zone of a transform plate boundary. They interpret time series plots from an earthquake in Parkfield, CA to calculate the resulting slip on the fault and (optionally) the earthquake's magnitude.

Frequency of Large Earthquakes
Jennifer Pickering
Using the IRIS Earthquake Browser tool, students gather data to support a claim about how many large (Mw 8+) earthquakes will happen globally each year. This activity provides scaffolded experience downloading data and manipulating data within a spreadsheet.

Prairie Eco Services
Kelly Knight, Houston Community College
As densely populated urban areas continue to expand, human activity is removing much-needed greenspaces from our communities; in turn, we are also removing critical buffers that are needed to combat air and water ...

Lake Mixing Module
C.C. Carey; J.L. Klug; R.L. Fuller
Stratified lakes exhibit vertical gradients in organisms, nutrients, and oxygen, which have important implications for ecosystem structure and functioning. Mixing disrupts these gradients by redistributing these ...

Unit 4: The Magic of Geophysical Inversion
Lee Slater, Rutgers University-Newark
This unit introduces the student to the concept of geophysical inversion, which is the process of estimating the geophysical properties of the subsurface from the geophysical observations. The basic mechanics of ...

Bomb Cyclones - They're Explosive!
Jacqui Jenkins-Degan, Marine Technology Program, Cape Fear Community College; Jacqui Degan, Cape Fear Community College
Storms can have devastating impacts on coastal communities. Typically, tropical storms like hurricanes get the most attention, but there are other types of storms that occur at more northern latitudes that can be ...

Pinpointing Location with GPS Demonstration: How GPS Works (Part 2)
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium; Daniel Zietlow, UNAVCO; David Thesenga, Alexander Dawson School
Using string, bubble gum, and a model of a GPS station, demonstrate how GPS work to pinpoint a location on Earth.Precisely knowing a location on Earth is useful because our Earth's surface is constantly changing from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate motion, landslides, and more. Thus, scientists can use positions determined with GPS to study all these Earth processes.

Lake Ice Phenology Module
C.C. Carey; J.L. Klug; D.C. Richardson
Lakes are changing worldwide due to altered climate. Many lakes that were historically frozen in the winter are now experiencing fewer days of ice cover and earlier ice-off dates. In this module, students will ...

Unit 5: Integrated Geophysical Interpretation and Comparison with Ground Truthing
Lee Slater, Rutgers University-Newark
In this unit, students explore spatial associations between the three-dimensional electromagnetic (EM) conductivity inversions and the visible patterns of Salicornia (pickleweed) introduced in Unit 1, Exploring ...