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.



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Results 11 - 20 of 39 matches

Unit 3: Getting started with GPS data part of GPS, Strain, and Earthquakes
Vince Cronin, Baylor University (Vince_Cronin@baylor.edu) Phil Resor, Wesleyan University (presor@wesleyan.edu)
This unit provides essential background information on GPS (global positioning system) and reference frames. Students learn how to access GPS location and velocity data from the Network of the Americas (NOTA). They ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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GETSI Developed This material was developed and reviewed through the GETSI curricular materials development process.
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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 ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Unit 3: Geodetic survey of a fault scarp part of Analyzing High Resolution Topography with TLS and SfM
Bruce Douglas (Indiana University) Nicholas Pinter (University of California Davis) Nathan Niemi (University of Michigan) J. Ramon Arrowsmith (Arizona State University) Kate Shervais (UNAVCO) Chris Crosby (EarthScope)
In this unit, students will design a survey (TLS and/or SfM) of a fault scarp. After conducting the survey in the field, students will analyze the data to identify the number and magnitude of possible fault ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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GETSI Developed This material was developed and reviewed through the GETSI curricular materials development process.
Learn more about this review process.

Isotope Hydrograph Separation part of Data and Model Driven Hydrology Education:Units
Anne Jefferson, Kent State University-Main Campus
Separation of hydrographs into event and pre-event fractions based on measurements and data, rather than arbitrary formulae, was a revolutionary technique in watershed hydrology in the 1970s and has continued to be ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Unit 2: Identifying faulting styles, rates and histories through analysis of geomorphic characteristics (Lidar) part of Imaging Active Tectonics
Bruce Douglas, Indiana University-Bloomington; Gareth Funning, University of California-Riverside
Can active faults be identified remotely, based upon their appearance in the landscape? How can the geomorphic features associated with active faults be used to classify and quantify fault movement? In this unit, ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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GETSI Developed This material was developed and reviewed through the GETSI curricular materials development process.
Learn more about this review process.

Role of Sedimentation in Rifting part of MARGINS Data in the Classroom:Mini Lesson Collection 2014
Sue Cashman, Humboldt State University; Rebecca Dorsey, University of Oregon; Scott Bennett, U.S. Geological Survey; Jack Loveless, Smith College; Lisa Lamb, University of St. Thomas (MN); Andrew Goodliffe, The University of Alabama
A module in which students use field and geophysical measurements and observations of Gulf of California basins to calculate isostasy and its controls.

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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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 ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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How Many People Can the Aquifer Support? part of NAGT:Our Resources:Teaching Resources:Teaching Materials Collection
Samantha Lindgren, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This aquifer simulation allows students to investigate the effects of adding a city and a farm, and adding wells with different pumping rates to meet human consumption needs. Students can observe the changes in the water table, wetlands, and river outflow through generated graphs and use the simulation to analyze the effects of human activity, drought, and climate change on the availability of fresh water.

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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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 ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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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 ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
Learn more about this review process.