The transgressive coastal sequence, as a fundamental concept in stratigraphy, will be explored by the students in a hands-on activity based on a set of high-resolution seismic profiles collected in the shoreface off Assateague Island, Maryland and Virginia. Small groups of 2-3 students will identify primary surfaces, such as the ravinement surface and sequence boundaries, and major sedimentary facies, such as offshore shoals, flood-tidal deltas, and tidal inlets, in a set of shore-parallel and shore-perpendicular lines. The exercise begins with factors controlling relative sea level and leads into accommodation space and preservation potential.

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This worksheet has students identify and annotate stratigraphic and structural features on top of four outcrop photos. It's designed to give students critically important practice, training their eyes to see geologically important features and understand what these features look like in real life. Stratigraphic and structural features are described for each of the four photos. Using the descriptions, students sketch and label each feature on top of the photo. For one photo, students also draw arrows to indicate the direction of fault movement given the geometry of bedding in the photo. Students also complete six multiple-choice questions pertaining to the concepts of the worksheet.

This worksheet uses the sketch-understanding program with built-in tutor: CogSketch . Therefore, students, instructors, and/or institution computer labs need to download the program from here: http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/software/cogsketch/. At any point during the worksheet, students can click the FEEDBACK button and their sketch is compared to the solution image. The built-in tutor identifies any discrepancies and reports pre-written feedback to help the student correct their sketch until they are done with the activity. Once worksheets are emailed to the instructor, worksheets can be batch graded and easily evaluated. This program allows instructors to assign sketching activities that require very little time commitment. Instead, the built-in tutor provides feedback whenever the student requests, without the presence of the instructor. More information on using the program and the activity is in the Instructor's Notes.

We have developed approximately two dozen introductory geoscience worksheets using this program. Each worksheet has a background image and instructions for a sketching task. You can find additional worksheets by searching for "CogSketch" using the search box at the top of this page. We expect to have uploaded all of them by the end of the summer of 2016.

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In this exercise, crystal structure data for a variety of unknown minerals are downloaded and entered into a visualization program (either XtalDraw or CrystalMaker). Through a series of directed questions for each unknown, students investigate and manipulate the crystal structure to gather information about its possible identity. This exercise builds on a wide variety of content normally covered over an entire introductory mineralogy course, and could be used as a self-study exercise to help mineralogy students prepare for a comprehensive final exam.

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In this exercise, crystal structure data for a variety of unknown minerals are downloaded and entered into a visualization program (either XtalDraw or CrystalMaker). Through a series of directed questions for each unknown, students investigate and manipulate the crystal structure to gather information about its possible identity. This exercise builds on a wide variety of content normally covered over an entire introductory mineralogy course, and could be used as a self-study exercise to help mineralogy students prepare for a comprehensive final exam.

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Average inquiry level: Guided inquiry
Students working in groups will examine and discuss earthquakes, volcanoes, topography, faults, and seafloor ages and use those features to identify the boundaries of tectonic plates and specific features and processes associated with specific types of plate boundaries. This lab is designed for face-to-face instruction.

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Students observe a virtual ocean basin and two adjacent continental margins. From the characteristics of the sea floor and adjacent land, students infer where plate boundaries might be present. They then predict where earthquakes and volcanoes might occur. Finally, they draw their inferred plate boundaries in cross section.

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Students only learn to identify symmetry by practice. These activities provide that practice. Besides learning to identify symmetry, these activities will get them thinking about how symmetry operations may combine. After completing these exercises successfully, students will be ready to hear about lattices, about point symmetry and point groups, and about space symmetry and space groups.

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Through a hands-on activity using salt marsh sediment cores from Pacific Northwest estuaries, students will learn how these environments record the history of earthquakes and tsunami. Students will analyze the stratigraphy through visualization and touch. Students will additionally conduct an experiment to compare organic matter content within sediment sampled from different depths within the sediment core.

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This is an online activity introducing students to the basic identification and classification of the textural and compositional characteristics of sedimentary rocks in thin section.

In this exercise, students use whole-rock major- and trace-element compositions of igneous rocks from a variety of tectonic settings and locations to explore the importance of plate setting in determining magma compositions. Students are split into groups and assigned different tectonic settings to examine and compare with other groups. Datasets are obtained from the GEOROC database, imported into Excel spreadsheets, and graphed to learn how igneous rock compositions are a function of plate tectonic setting.

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In this exercise, students are split into groups to gather whole-rock geochemical data (major-, trace-, and rare-earth elements) from the GEOROC database for igneous rocks sampled from four different plate tectonic settings: mid-ocean ridges, subduction zones, oceanic islands, and oceanic plateaus. Each group is assigned a different plate tectonic setting and collects three datasets from different locations for their tectonic setting. Geochemical data is graphed as major-element variation and REE diagrams to quantify igneous diversity both within the same tectonic setting and between different tectonic settings. The main goal of this exercise is to demonstrate that igneous rock compositions are a strong function of plate tectonic setting.

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Igneous Rocks Identification online (developed for remote learning during COVID-19 pandemic); students will explore the various characteristics of igneous rocks and then apply them to identify unknowns.

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Average inquiry level: Guided inquiry
This is an in-person inquiry lab for igneous rocks, but it could be converted to an online lab through use of igneous rock photos available online (see links provided in the Instructor Notes). Students will work with a variety of typical igneous rocks, developing observational skills and learning to categorize and identify igneous rocks based on their compositions and textures. In addition, students will be able to "tell the story" of igneous rocks, using observational skills to understand where on earth and under what circumstances an igneous rock could form.

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While working in groups to facilitate peer tutoring, students use samples of four igneous rocks (gabbro, basalt, granite, and rhyolite) to observe differences in texture, color and grain size and make inferences about the relative cooling histories and silica content associated with each magma type.

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In this project, students work in small groups to formally characterize an aspect of a local igneous rock, based on petrography, hand sample descriptions, and SEM and/or CL analyses. Students have two lab sessions and a field trip dedicated to working on this suite of rocks: one for detailed petrographic analyses and another SEM or CL imaging and analysis. The field trip is the field component of the project. The individual labs are ungraded, but all are required for completion of the project.

Papers must include the following sections:
Introduction, Geologic History, Petrography, Chemical Analysis, Discussion, References, Appendix (contains copies of ALL notes, calculations, drafts and revisions)

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Geologists describe rocks as they do minerals -- by their physical properties -- but rocks have only two properties, namely, composition and texture. Different rock types emphasize different aspects of composition and texture, and there are so many variations that geologists have coined hundreds of different rock names. In this exercise, we focus on one particular set of igneous rocks and learn how geologists approach describing and naming them. For igneous rocks, we begin usually by considering mineral composition, i.e., what minerals are present and at what percentages. All of the rocks used in this exercise are coarse-grained and crystalline.
Student materials for this exercise include an instruction/question file, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with with data for various types of igneous rocks, and an image file illustrating rock samples (PDF). The exercise is divided into three parts.
Part I introduces the concept of composition for igneous rocks. Students learn how to estimate mineral percentages visually for two hand speciments and one thin section.
Part II applies the method of point counting to the three samples from Part I. Students compare the precision and results of the rock identification methods in Parts I and II.
In Part III, students practice normalizing compositional data for use on triangle diagrams. They apply this method to a simplified quartz-alkali feldspar-plagioclase (QAP) triangle diagram. Students discover the drawbacks of the QAP diagram and the advantage of using other triangle diagrams for mafic and ultramafic rocks.

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This is an online adaptation to the igneous rock lab that I do in my face to face class. I intend to use this online exercise in my course this fall for students in my face to face class to test. I will update it with information when I find out what does and does not work. I want to test this assignment prior to offering in in a purely online course.
Teaching Tips
Adaptations that allow this activity to be successful in an online environment
There is a link in the assignment for students to practice rock identification prior to identifying the samples in the photographs provided with the lab. I will also be adding a pre-lab quiz on the terms that I do not currently do in my traditional class. In addition, I have added some post-lab questions. The pre-lab quiz and post-lab questions are discussions that I have with my students the day of the lab. By adding these two components, I believe it will strengthen the lab for an online activity.
Elements of this activity that are most effective
I believe that the rock identification practice site will be effective as it will build students' confidence in correctly identifying the rocks, compositions, and textures in the absence of a lab partner or instructor providing immediate feedback and answers to questions. The website provides immediate feedback to the student.
Recommendations for other faculty adapting this activity to their own course:
This assignment can be done either face to face or online. In a face to face class, the instructor will provide the rock samples to identify. In an online class, each sample can be linked to a photograph(s) for identification. I have not uploaded photographs here because I will be using the ones that accompany my textbook (see supporting references for information).

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The goal of this assignment is to introduce students to the degree to which ecosystems, climate, and geography have varied through Earth history. It requires students to work in groups (which many resist) and to research each geologic period using the Paleo Portal website and external websites.

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An exercise to use a simple image analysis program to classify land surface types seen in satellite imagery in order to analyze changes in landscape development over time.

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Students explore for water on Mars using impact crater morphology. During this lab, students: learn to use the equation writing and graphing capabilities in Microsoft Excel, thendevelop and apply an impact crater depth-diameter relationship in an effort to constrain the depth to a possible water-rich layer beneath one or more portions of the surface of Mars!

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