Episodic tremor and slip: The Case of the Mystery Earthquakes | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Earthquakes in western Washington and Oregon are to be expected—the region lies in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Offshore, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate subducts under the North American plate, from northern California to British Columbia. The region, however, also experiences exotic seismicity— Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS).In this lesson, your students study seismic and GPS data from the region to recognize a pattern in which unusual tremors--with no surface earthquakes--coincide with jumps of GPS stations. This is ETS. Students model ductile and brittle behavior of the crust with lasagna noodles to understand how properties of materials depend on physical conditions. Finally, they assemble their knowledge of the data and models into an understanding of ETS in subduction zones and its relevance to the millions of residents in Cascadia.

Quantum mechanics: Polar spectra
Penny Rowe, NorthWest Research Associates
Students learn about the greenhouse effect by examining a "forbidden" rovibrational band in the infrared emission spectra of Earth's atmosphere, recorded from the surface at South Pole Station. By ...

Pinpointing Location with GPS Demonstration: How GPS Works (Part 2)
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
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.

Unit 1: Collecting GPS Data
Karen M. Kortz (Community College of Rhode Island) Jessica J. Smay (San Jose City College)
GPS data can measure vertical and horizontal bedrock motion caused by a variety of geologic processes, such as plate movement and the changing amount of water and ice on Earth's surface. In this unit, students ...

Nutrient Loading Module
This module was initially developed by Castendyk, D.N., T. Meixner, and C.A. Gibson. 6 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Nutrient Loading. Project EDDIE Module 7, Version 1. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Estimating nutrient loads is a critical concept for students studying water quality in a variety of environmental settings. Many STEM/Environmental science students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic activities on human water resources and/or ecosystems as part of their future careers. This module engages students in exploring factors contributing to the actual loads of nitrogen that are transmitted down streams. Nitrogen is a key water quality contaminant contributing to surface water quality issues in fresh, salt, and estuarine environments. Students will utilize real-time nitrate data from the US Geological Survey to calculate nitrate loads for several locations and investigate the interplay of concentration and discharge that contributes to calculated loads.

Unit 2: Monitoring surface and groundwater supply in central and western US
Jonathan Harvey (Fort Lewis College) and Becca Walker (Mt San Antonio College)
In Unit 2, students learn how the techniques for water budgeting (covered in Unit 1) can be used to monitor both groundwater (High Plains Aquifer) and surface water (western mountain watershed) systems. Students ...

Sustainability Metrics
Natalie Hunt, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Sustainability is a complex term applied to many different contexts in a variety of ways. As a result, it can be challenging to determine how sustainable something really is. In this module, students will use an ...

Unit 2: Examining the Distribution of Mass Wasting Events
Bobak Karimi (Wilkes University) Stephen Hughes (University of Puerto Rico–Mayaguez)
What factors contribute to the distribution patterns of mass wasting events? In this unit, students will use a frequency-ratio method, one of the most common quantitative methods used in the statistical analysis of ...

Teleconnections
Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Ecosystems can be influenced by teleconnections, in which meteorological, societal, and/or ecological phenomenon link remote regions via cause and effect relationships. Because it is difficult to predict how ...

Using Ecological Forecasts to Guide Decision Making
This module was developed by W.M. Woelmer, R.Q. Thomas, T.N. Moore and C.C. Carey. 21 January 2021. Macrosystems EDDIE: Using Ecological Forecasts to Guide Decision-Making. Macrosystems EDDIE Module 8, Version 1. http://module8.macrosystemseddie.org. Module development was supported by NSF grants DEB-1926050 and DBI-1933016.
Because of increased variability in populations, communities, and ecosystems due to land use and climate change, there is a pressing need to know the future state of ecological systems across space and time. ...