Exemplary Teaching Activities

Initial Publication Date: November 8, 2019 | Fix Links: June 18, 2024 (see revision history: 2 events)

Beginning in 2011, On the Cutting Edge began a process to review the extensive collection of activities submitted by workshop participants and members of the geoscience community. With the transition of the On the Cutting Edge program into NAGT the review process is now being used to broadly review online teaching activities relevant to NAGT's community of Earth educators. Through this review processes activities are scored on 5 elements: scientific veracity; alignment of goals, activity, and assessment; pedagogical effectiveness; robustness; and completeness of the description. The activities that score very highly in these areas become part of the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection and are featured below.

You may also be interested in the full collection of teaching activities.

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Subject: Geoscience Show all

Geoscience > Paleontology > Evolution

6 matches

Theme: Teach the Earth

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Online Readiness

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Results 1 - 6 of 6 matches

Unit 4: Impacts of Environmental Change on Organisms: Horses part of Changing Biosphere
Camille Holmgren, SUNY Buffalo State University
In this unit, students will gain a deep-time perspective on how life evolves on a dynamic planet. They will use the Equidae (horse family) as a case study to examine the relationship among climate, biomes, and ...

Exploring the nature of geoscience using cartoon cards part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities
Anne Egger, Central Washington University
In this activity, students work in groups to put a set of cartoon cards in order, much in the way that we might assemble a geologic history. The primary goal of the activity is to explore the nature of science in general and the nature of geoscience or historical science specifically, without requiring any content knowledge.

Layer Cake Geology part of Paleontology:Activities
Molly Ward, Museum of the Rockies
This activity visually introduces students to the idea of geologic time and the correlation between time, rock layers and fossils. It uses the familiar, relevant example of cake but teaches important concepts such ...

Paleoecology: An Evolutionary Arms Race part of Paleontology:Activities
Rowan Lockwood, College of William and Mary
In this activity, students divide into groups of 4-5, fine-tune a hypothesis relating to escalation, collect data to test this hypothesis using mollusks from local Yorktown deposits (Pliocene), analyze these data, ...

Evolution in Your "Pet" Group part of Paleontology:Activities
Peg Yacobucci, Bowling Green State University-Main Campus
This writing exercise asks students to use library resources to locate a peer-reviewed journal article that describes research on the evolution of their individual "pet" taxonomic group. After reading the ...

Creature Features - Showcase of Living Fossils part of Paleontology:Activities
David Sunderlin, Lafayette College
This activity connects the fossil record to biodiversity in the Recent by having students present on a "living fossil" group. The exercise is useful in demonstrating evolutionary stasis, reminding ...