Lesson 3: The Value of a Water Footprint (High School) part of Teaching Activities
Kai Olson-Sawyer, GRACE Communications Foundation
Session 1 of this lesson begins with a quick activity to get students thinking about their direct and virtual water use. It introduces a few new ideas for virtual water use that may surprise students, including the ...

Topographic differencing: Earthquake along the Wasatch fault part of Teaching Activities
Chelsea Scott, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
After a big earthquake happens people ask, 'Where did the earthquake occur? How big was it? What type of fault was activated?' We designed an undergraduate laboratory exercise in which students learn how ...

How Do We Know Where an Earthquake Originated? part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jeffrey Barker (Binghamton University) & Michael Hubenthal (IRIS)
Students use real seismograms to determine the arrival times for P and S waves and use these times to determine the distance of the seismic station from the earthquake. Seismograms from three stations are provided to determine the epicenter using the S – P (S minus P) method. Because real seismograms contain some "noise" with resultant uncertainty in locating arrival times of P and S waves, this activity promotes appreciation for uncertainties in interpretation of real scientific data.

Unit 2.2 - Basic Critical Zone Concepts part of Critical Zone Science
Ashlee Dere, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Susan Gill, Stroud Water Research Center
Students will learn about geoscience-specific methods used to analyze data in the Critical Zone from data-driven activities and short presentations by their peers. The topics include the use of carbon isotopes, ...

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 ...

Unit 2: Water Footprints part of Water, Agriculture, Sustainability
Robert Turner, University of Washington-Bothell Campus
Unit 2 opens a window into water accounting and reveals intensive water use that few people think about. How much water goes into common commodities? Have you considered how much water it takes to support our ...

Unit 2.1: Hydrologic Impact of Land-Use Change part of An Ecosystem Services Approach to Water Resources
John Ritter, Wittenberg University; Meghann Jarchow, University of South Dakota; Ed Barbanell, University of Utah
In this activity, students model the impact of land-cover changes on stormwater runoff using the EPA's National Stormwater Calculator (Calculator). The students are introduced to the Calculator through a ...

Watershed area and discharge relationships part of Hydrogeology:Hydrogeology, Soils, Geochemistry 2013:Activities
Steven Petsch, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Students use USGS WaterData website to find data on area, average annual discharge and response to high-precip events in small watersheds in southern New England. Data for the class are compiled to generate graphs ...

Mysterious motions along the Pacific Northwest Coast part of Teaching Activities
John Taber, EarthScope Consortium
Students work in small groups to analyze and interpret Global Positioning System (GPS) and seismic data related to "mysterious ground motions" first along the northern California coastline, and then in ...

Mt. St. Helens Volcanic Ashfall Eruption part of Teaching Activities
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place outside of the classroom and requires ~1 hour to complete. Students recreate the map of the Mt. St. Helens ash plume of 1980 and use their maps to answer a series of questions about this ...