Melding Research on the Navajo Volcanic Field into Undergraduate Curriculum to Promote Scientific Literacy
David Gonzales, Fort Lewis College Summary Mafic dike in the Navajo volcanic field exposed near Newcomb, New Mexico. Details This module highlights the curricular design and outcomes of undergraduate research in ...

Environmental Geophysics
The students are exposed to the geophysical methods that geologists and civil engineers use to examine a number of different geological and environmental problems. While it will be important to understand the ...

Incorporating Information Literacy into Climate Change Teaching
This module contains 10 topics related to finding and evaluating scientific information related to climate change. The skills learned are transferable to any subject area. Each topic includes exercises.

Use of an inquiry approach for exploring relationships between small stream dynamics, channel geometry, and bedform movement
This group activity allows students to identify questions in the field on an actual physical system (in this case a small sand and gravel bed stream), then design experiments to answer their own questions. The ...

Non-traditional and under-represented students in hydrogeology: Learning by discovery in an urban environment
An example of student-driven, instructor-guided field experiments on a budget. Schools that cater to under-represented students are often those with limited resources, however, student-driven discovery in the field ...

Unraveling Geological History: Glaciers and Faults at Discovery Park, Seattle
This introductory geology field exercise asks students to make individual observations about parts of an outcrop, then combine their observations in larger teams to interpret the overall geological history of the exposure. Content learning includes stratigraphy, faulting, and local geologic history; process learning includes data gathering and recording, hypothesis formation, and outlining helpful evidence that could be gathered in the future.

Scientific logic: An application to meteorological observations
A sample question/problem in which students are asked to apply the logic of scientific evidence to statements about weather patterns, based on observations on a typical surface weather map.

Planetary Climate Change
What are weather and climate, how has climate changed in the past, how do we know, what causes climate to change, and how can we predict future climate? Planetary Climate Change explores scientists' current ...

General Geology lab
This is the lab portion of General Geology (Geology 101), and is designed for novice scientists or science-phobic students. Different aspects of the process of science are addressed each week in the context of ...

Why Should You Be Scientifically Literate?
The article Why Should You Be Scientifically Literate? and its accompanying classroom lesson, Why?" provides both professional development ideas on best practices about how to improve science literacy in the classroom and suggestions for teaching activities about the nature of science through the spirit of inquiry.