Indiana River Meanders Mapping Exercise part of Teaching Activities
Emily Zawacki, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
In Indiana, major rivers and their tributaries cross much of the state. These rivers can produce significant hazards related to flooding and erosion, which threaten nearby residents and infrastructure. Rivers are ...

Converging Tectonic Plates Demonstration part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
During this demo, participants use springs and a map of the Pacific Northwest with GPS vectors to investigate the stresses and surface expression of subduction zones, specifically the Juan de Fuca plate diving beneath the North American plate.

Measuring Ground Motion with GPS: How GPS Works part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
With printouts of typical GPS velocity vectors found near different tectonic boundaries and models of a GPS station, demonstrate how GPS work to measure ground motion.GPS velocity vectors point in the direction that a GPS station moves as the ground it is anchored to moves. The length of a velocity vector corresponds to the rate of motion. GPS velocity vectors thus provide useful information for how Earth's crust deforms in different tectonic settings.

Modeling Rare Plant Distributions Using ArcGIS part of Teaching Activities
Elizabeth Crook, University of California-Irvine
In this activity, students work with rare plant occurrence data from the Nature Reserve of Orange County, California to create species distribution maps in ArcGIS. Students are given shapefiles of species ...

Pinpointing Location with GPS Demonstration: How GPS Works (Part 2) part of Geodesy:Activities
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.

Old Sticks in the Mud: Hazards of Lahars from Mount Rainier Volcano part of Curriculum for the Bioregion:Activities
Patrick Pringle, Centralia College
Volcanic debris flows (lahars) flow long distances, bury and aggrade river valleys, and cause long-term stream disturbances and dramatic landscape changes. Students will evaluate the nature, scale, and history of ...

Google Earth Investigations of Folded and Faulted Landforms part of Geodesy:Activities
Hillary Hamann, University of Denver
This activity utilizes Google Earth (the free downloadable version) to investigate folded and faulted landscapes and to review crustal deformation processes and associated landform features.

Exercise 8: Using LiDAR and GPS data to model the water table in ArcScene part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barb Tewksbury, Hamilton College
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Tutorial for using the new LiDAR tools (LAS dataset and LAS toolbar) in ArcGIS 10.1 (Acrobat (PDF) 13.8MB Nov6 13). Same LiDAR Tutorial as a Word doc (Microsoft Word ...

Mapping commingled magmas, Eastern Head of Isle Au Haut, Maine part of Geoscience in the Field:Activities
Dykstra Eusden, Bates College
This is a week-long bedrock mapping project on Isle Au Haut, in Penobscot Bay, Maine, with three to four field days followed by 1-2 lab days. The bedrock is Silurian gabbro and granite that commingled in a magma ...

Reflectance Spectra part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Katherine McCarville, Upper Iowa University
Katherine McCarville, Upper Iowa University Summary Students use the ALTA reflectance spectrometer to understand concepts in active vs. passive remote sensing, reflectance, and the creation and relevance of ...