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.

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Teach the Earth > Teaching Environments
High School (9-12)

Results 1 - 10 of 68 matches

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 ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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LEGO® Magma Crystallization Activity part of Magma Labs
Jessica Larsen, University of Alaska Fairbanks
This exercise uses LEGO® Magma Crystallization Activity building blocks to demonstrate in a simple way how zoned crystals can form in magmas. The exercise also shows how the surrounding melt changes in composition ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Activity 10: Feedback Loops Applied part of Teaching Activities
Cameron Weiner, Middlebury College
Students apply the vocabulary and concepts from the Activity 9: Feedback Loop Introduction to assess and create earth science feedback loops with the LOOPY online modeling program. (Optional) The students then ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Activity 6: Creating a Systems Diagram part of Teaching Activities
Cameron Weiner, Middlebury College
In this activity students learn the steps to create a systems diagram and then apply those steps to create a systems diagram of the wastewater system. Students are provided with additional written information that ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Detecting Cascadia's changing shape with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Research-grade Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allow students to deduce that Earth's crust is changing shape in measurable ways. From data gathered by EarthScope's Plate Boundary Observatory, students discover that the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal British Columbia — the Cascadia region - are geologically active: tectonic plates move and collide; they shift and buckle; continental crust deforms; regions warp; rocks crumple, bend, and will break.

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Activity 8: Equilibrium Experiment part of Teaching Activities
Cameron Weiner, Middlebury College
Students explore the systems thinking concepts of equilibrium and nonequilibrium with a water pouring experiment. Students complete the activity at home or virtually with videos. Water is poured from a top ...

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
This lesson teaches middle and high school students to understand the architecture of GPS—from satellites to research quality stations on the ground. This is done with physical models and a presentation. Then students learn to interpret data for the station's position through time ("time series plots"). Students represent time series data as velocity vectors and add the vectors to create a total horizontal velocity vector. They apply their skills to discover that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is rifting Iceland. They cement and expand their understanding of GPS data with an abstraction using cars and maps. Finally, they explore GPS vectors in the context of global plate tectonics.

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Activity 9: Feedback Loops Introduction part of Teaching Activities
Cameron Weiner, Middlebury College
Students are introduced to feedback loop vocabulary and experiment with different relationships between reservoirs in simple feedback loops using LOOPY, a free, online modeling program.

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

On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Lake Mixing Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
This module was initially developed by Carey, C.C., J.L. Klug, and R.L. Fuller. 1 August 2015. Project EDDIE: Dynamics of Lake Mixing. Project EDDIE Module 3, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/lake-mixing.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Stratified lakes exhibit vertical gradients in organisms, nutrients, and oxygen, which have important implications for ecosystem structure and functioning. Mixing disrupts these gradients by redistributing these ...

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