Unit 2: Community-Based Participatory Solutions part of Food as the Foundation for Healthy Communities
Richard D. Schulterbrandt Gragg III, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University; John Warford, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University; Cynthia Hewitt, Morehouse College; Akin Akinyemi, Florida State University; Cheryl Young, Heritage University
The introduction and examination of the food, energy, and water connection—as a system in Unit 1—established the dictates of human dependency on and human modification of the environment. We continue a logical ...

Tracking Sea Level and Paleoenvironments with Fossils part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Pete Berquist, Virginia Peninsula Community College
Students use the Paleobiology Database Navigator to examine changes in sea level in southeastern North America throughout the Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Neogene Periods. They will plot the change in distribution of ...

Unit 4: Anatomy of a tragic slide: Oso Landslide case study part of Surface Process Hazards
Becca Walker, Mt. San Antonio College
Landslides can have profound societal consequences, such as did the slide that occurred near Oso, Washington in 2014. Forty-three people were killed and entire rural neighborhood was destroyed. In this unit, ...

Unit 1: Slip-sliding away: case study landslides in Italy and Peru part of Surface Process Hazards
Sarah Hall, College of the Atlantic; Becca Walker, Mt. San Antonio College
How have mass-wasting events affected communities, and what lessons have we learned from these natural disasters that might help us mitigate future hazards? In this unit, students answer these questions by being ...

Unit 3: Understanding landslide factors part of Surface Process Hazards
Becca Walker, Mt. San Antonio College
How do slope characteristics and magnitude of forces dictate whether or not a slope will fail? Can environmental and built characteristics change the magnitude of these forces? In this unit, students qualitatively ...

Unit 5: Mitigating future disasters: developing a mass-wasting hazard map part of Surface Process Hazards
Becca Walker, Mt. San Antonio College
This unit serves as the summative assessment of the Surface Process Hazards module. In September 2013, the Boulder area of Colorado experienced an extreme rain event that led to mass wasting in many areas. This has ...

Summative Assessment: Creating a model part of Modeling Earth Systems
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College; Louisa Bradtmiller, Macalester College; David Bice, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
The summative assessment for this course requires students to construct, utilize, and critique a numerical model of a climate-related Earth system of their choosing. The project involves four pieces: creating a ...

Unit 6: Hydrologic Balance and Climate Change part of Modeling Earth Systems
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College
In this unit, students create a STELLA model of the Owens River chain of lakes in eastern California and then experiment with different climate change scenarios to simulate the Pleistocene history of lake filling ...

Unit 7: Heat Flow in Permafrost part of Modeling Earth Systems
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College
In this unit, students create a STELLA model of heat flow in the top 1 km of Earth's crust to explore the use of Arctic borehole temperature profiles as recorders of anthropogenic warming. The exercise draws ...

Unit 8: Thermohaline Circulation part of Modeling Earth Systems
David Bice, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
In this module, students first review some background material on density-driven deep currents in the oceans, and then create a STELLA model of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean. The model ...