Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Students analyze data to study the motion of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. From GPS data, students detect relative motion between the plates in the San Andreas fault zone--with and without earthquakes. To get to that discovery, they use physical models to understand the architecture of GPS, from satellites to sensitive stations on the ground. They learn to interpret time series data collected by stations (in the spreading regime of Iceland), to cast data as horizontal north-south and east-west vectors, and to add those vectors head-to-tail.Students then apply their skills and understanding to data in the context of the strike-slip fault zone of a transform plate boundary. They interpret time series plots from an earthquake in Parkfield, CA to calculate the resulting slip on the fault and (optionally) the earthquake's magnitude.

Visualizing Relationships with Data: Exploring plate boundaries with Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and GPS Data in the Western U.S. & Alaska | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Learners use the GPS Velocity Viewer, or the included map packet to visualize relationships between earthquakes, volcanoes, and plate boundaries as a jigsaw activity.

Exploring Tectonic Motions with GPS part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Learners study plate tectonic motions by analyzing Global Positioning System (GPS) data, represented as vectors on a map. By observing changes in vector lengths and directions, learners interpret whether regions are compressing, extending, or sliding past each other. To synthesize their findings, learners identify locations most likely to have earthquakes, and defend their choices by providing evidence based on the tectonic motions from the GPS vector and seismic hazards maps. Show more information on NGSS alignment Hide NGSS ALIGNMENT Disciplinary Core Ideas History of Earth: HS-ESS1-5 Earth' Systems: MS-ESS2-2 Earth and Human Activity: MS-ESS3-2, HS-ESS3-1 Science and Engineering Practices 4. Analyzing and Interpreting Data 5. Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking 6. Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions Crosscutting Concepts 4. Systems and System Models 7. Stability and Change 

Earthquake Machine part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) and ShakeAlert
In this activity, learners work collaboratively in small groups to explore the earthquake cycle by using a physical model. Attention is captured through several short video clips illustrating the awe-inspiring power of ground shaking resulting from earthquakes. To make students' prior knowledge explicit and activate their thinking about the topic of earthquakes, each student writes their definition of an earthquake on a sticky note. Next, through a collaborative process, small groups of students combine their individual definitions to create a consensus definition for an earthquake.

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 ...

Frequency of Large Earthquakes part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Using the IRIS Earthquake Browser tool, students gather data to support a claim about how many large (Mw 8+) earthquakes will happen globally each year. This activity provides scaffolded experience downloading data and manipulating data within a spreadsheet.

Using concept sketches for field trip wrap-up part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:Activities
Barb Tewksbury, Hamilton College
This is a post-field trip assignment in a structural geology course. Students create a set of concept sketches, with a short introduction, to illustrate the structural features and geologic history of the area, ...

Pangaea Breakup part of GEODE:GEODE Teaching Resources
Steve Whitmeyer, James Madison University; Mladen Dorevic, Old Dominion University
A Google Earth animation files was developed to show the Pangaea breakup. The animation is utilized to illustrate the evidence for plate tectonics and plate motion. Three student exercises are build around this ...

Reading an Earthquake Seismogram part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Introductory lesson that deconstructs the information that can be gleaned from a single seismogram.

Plate Tectonics with Maps and Spreadsheets part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students learn about plate tectonic boundaries, earthquakes in a subducting slab, and volcanic hotspot tracks.