Module 1: An Ecology/Climate Scenario part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
Russell Graham, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
In this module, participants read a short scenario and answer a series of questions to emulate the scientific process of making observations and hypotheses. Entitled "Gotta find a better place to fish...", the scenario details observations of biological, environmental, and ecological changes to a mountain stream over time. Participants answer questions that ask them to hypothesize why some of these changes might be occurring and how they are related. Part of the Neotoma Education Modules for Biotic Response to Climate Change.

Lab Exercise: Exploring the Neotoma Paleoecology Database part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
John (Jack) Williams, University of Wisconsin-Madison
This lab introduces students and other interested users to the Neotoma Paleoecology Database and Neotoma Explorer. Neotoma DB is a public-access and community-supported repository of paleoecological data, mostly from the late Quaternary. These data are widely used by scientists to study species responses to past climate change.

Radiocarbon dating project part of Rates and Time:Teaching Activities
Mark Schmitz, Boise State University
This is an example of an activity used in a Quaternary Geochronology course, in which a small group of students (3-4) is tasked with transforming a set of activity measurements into radiocarbon ages and calibrated ...

Exploring El Niño part of Sedimentary Geology:Sedimentology, Geomorphology, and Paleontology 2014:Activities
Kevin Theissen, University of St. Thomas (MN)
In this introductory-level lab activity, students first view a 20-minute portion of an informative video to learn about the operation of an array of moored buoys that is used to detect changes in the El Niño ...

Earth's Changing Climates part of CLEAN Collection

Beetles, Mammals, and Plants: Is Climate Driving Range Shifts Since the Last Glacial Maximum part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
Christian George, High Point University
In this exercise, students will use the Neotoma database and ArcGIS Online to create a distribution map of modern collection localities of beetle taxa associated with an assemblage of fossil beetles from the Conklin Quarry site in eastern Iowa. a data rich exercise to help students discover how organisms move in response to climate change

Relating Late-Quaternary Plant and Animal Distributions to Past and Future Climate part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
Samantha Kaplan, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
A guided activity for students to explore the relationship between climate and plant and animal distributions in the past, present, and future. Students use the Neotoma Paleoecology Database, USDA Climate Change Tree Atlas, USGS Atlas of Relations Between Climatic Parameters and Distributions of Important Trees and Shrubs in North America (Professional Paper 1650 A/B), and climate model output.

Species distributions in response to environmental gradients in the Upper Midwest of the United States - an example using the Neotoma database part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
Alison Smith, Kent State University-Main Campus
Pollen and ostracode records are used here to examine the migration of a major ecotone (transition zone between two biomes) in the Northern Midwest known as the prairie-forest border. Using the Neotoma database, we can explore the modern geographic distribution of prairie and forest vegetation (represented by pollen data) and of saline and freshwater lakes (represented by ostracodes, microscopic aquatic crustaceans) and then track the shifting boundary of the prairie forest border over the most recent 12,000 years using a lake sediment core.

What are the ecological consequences of trophic downgrading in mixed/short grass prairies in North America? part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
Dennis Ruez, University of Illinois at Springfield
North American ecosystems have fundamentally changed over the late Pleistocene and Holocene; from a system dominated by mammoths, to bison, to domestic livestock. Given the very different body size and herd formation of these 'ecosystem engineers', it is likely that animals influence soil structure, water tables, vegetation and other animals in the ecosystems. What has been the ecological influence of the continued 'downsizing' of the largest animals in the ecosystem?

Advanced exploration of the ecological consequences of trophic downgrading in mixed/short grass prairies in North America part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
Dennis Ruez, University of Illinois at Springfield
North American ecosystems have fundamentally changed over the late Pleistocene and Holocene; from a system dominated by mammoths, to bison, to domestic livestock. Given the very different body size and herd formation of these 'ecosystem engineers', it is likely that animals influence soil structure, water tables, vegetation and other animals in the ecosystems. What has been the ecological influence of the continued 'downsizing' of the largest animals in the ecosystem?