Exemplary Teaching Activities
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.
Subject: Geoscience Show all
Geoscience > Biogeosciences
11 matchesTheme: Teach the Earth
Grade Level
Online Readiness
Results 1 - 10 of 11 matches
Remote Sensing of Plants and Topography in R part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Kyla Dahlin, Michigan State University
This module introduces students who are already familiar with remote sensing and R to doing quantitative analyses with large spatial data sets. Students will explore different possible abiotic drivers of plant ...
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Water Quality Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
This module was initially developed by Castendyk, D. and Gibson, C. 30 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Water Quality. Project EDDIE Module 6, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/water-quality.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Water quality is a critical concept for undergraduate students studying Earth Sciences, Biology, and Environmental Sciences. Many of these students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic ...
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Nutrient Monitoring in the Chesapeake Bay part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Akinyele Oni, Morgan State University; Niangoran Koissi, Morgan State University
The Chesapeake Bay waters receive input from rivers and streams from areas of Washington D.C, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and some parts of New York and Pennsylvania. Historically, humongous ...
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Module 5: Soils and Nutrients part of Future of Food
Steven Vanek, Pennsylvania State Univ-Penn St. Erie-Behrend Coll
The purpose of this module is to give you as a learner a basic grounding in the nature of soils and soil nutrients. Module 5.1 provides the foundation for understanding soils, soil nutrients, and their connection ...
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Unit 5.1 - Water Balance of a Tree part of Critical Zone Science
Martha Conklin, University of California-Merced
The assignment is to calculate an annual water balance for a tree using data gathered at the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory. In the framework of experimental design, students will organize around a ...
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Unit 6.1 - Biogeochemical Modeling Framework part of Critical Zone Science
Adam Wymore, University of New Hampshire-Main Campus
In this unit, students will learn about the dynamic movement of nutrients among and within ecosystems primarily through the reading and discussion of scientific literature. This unit is generally subdivided into ...
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Unit 5: The Sixth Extinction part of Changing Biosphere
Camille Holmgren, SUNY Buffalo State University
In this unit, students will prepare by reading a couple of articles describing the causes and rates of mass extinctions, including the current "Sixth Extinction," and why conservation is important to ...
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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 ...
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Fantastic Prehistoric Beasts and Where/When to Find Them part of Guided Inquiry Introductory Geology Labs:Activities
Marie Farson, Principia College; Sharon Gilberg, St. Petersburg College
Average inquiry level: Guided inquiry This inquiry-based lab explores the fossil record by having students use various characteristics of fossils to devise a classification scheme and eventually apply the geologic ...
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Unit 3: The Interconnected Nature of the Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, and Biosphere part of Changing Biosphere
Sam Donovan, BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium; LeeAnna Chapman, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Cailin Huyck Orr, Carleton College; Camille Holmgren, SUNY Buffalo State University; Rebecca Teed, Wright State University-Main Campus
Using a systems dynamics approach, students will work in groups to conceptualize and construct a model of the global carbon cycle considering five major Earth systems: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, ...
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