In spring 2020, the world was hit by a pandemic that spread globally by March, causing universities and most of the world to move to remote means. Summer field camps, long hailed as a rite of passage in the geosciences, were cancelled throughout the US. The community moved quickly, with NAGT developing remote learning tools and arranging for sharing and collaboration between instructors and institutions. As such, UNAVCO (GETSI) and University of Northern Colorado embarked on a data collection campaign for a summer field course entitled "Geoscience Field Issues Using High-Resolution Topography to Understand Earth Surface Processes" -- originally slated for in-person teaching. The team collected GNSS data, drone imagery for use in structure from motion (SfM), and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) from a site near Greeley, Colorado on the Poudre River. In this assignment, students analyze TLS data in a similar manner as previously done for the SfM unit conducted previously in the course. Students compare and contrast the SfM and TLS datasets.
Day 7 - This activity is part of the 2-week remote field course Geoscience Field Issues Using High-Resolution Topography to Understand Earth Surface Processes

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Students graph data from 20th century hurricanes that affected the state of Texas. Along the way they answer questions that ask them to interpret what they see represented on the graphs.

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This activity guides students through making a simple circuit and writing a simple Arduino sketch (code) to make some LEDs blink. It precedes a lab where students build a temperature sensor, and could be used prior to any lab that has students build Arduino-based environmental sensors. Instructions are complete enough so an instructor with no previous Arduino experience can implement this activity.

This exercise gives students personal experience with data sets that have spatial reference "issues" so that they learn first hand both why it matters to be meticulous about projections and coordinate systems and how to work with coordinate systems, projections, and datum transformations in ArcMap. You might also be interested in our Full GIS course with links to all assignments.

Students map the classroom twice using paper and pencil, the first time on different pieces of paper and with essentially no instructions and the second time on a base map with coordinates for one corner of the room with instructions about what to map and make a table of information about what they are mapping. *Special thanks to Dennis Johnson, Juniata College, for the basic idea for this activity!* You might also be interested in our Full GIS course with links to all assignments.

This lab is designed as an introduction to the investigation of minerals with the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the X-ray analyzer (Energy Dispersive Spectrometer - EDS). We will explore the relationships among the optical image, the backscattered electron image, and the chemical composition of minerals in thin-sections that we have studied optically. Specifically we will examine the interaction of a mineral with a high energy (20 kv) electron beam focused to a diameter of a few microns. Three different detectors of the SEM/EDS will be used to study minerals in thin sections. Additional concepts that may be introduced in this lab include: formula calculations, solid solution, exsolution, and chemical zoning.

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The learning goals for this lab are the following: 1) to familiarize students with the anatomy and terminology relating to trilobites; 2) to give students experience identifying morphologic structures on real fossil specimens, not just diagrammatic representations; 3) to highlight major events or trends in the evolutionary history and ecology of the Trilobita; and 4) to expose students to the study of macroevolution in the fossil record using trilobites as a case study. This lab will be particularly helpful to those institutions that lack a large teaching collection by providing color photographs of museum specimens.

In this activity, students are introduced to the methods of inquiry in the Earth sciences and how they differ from what is classically taught in school science.

This activity explores how clay affects the permeability of sands, the effect of chemical differences of the clay (cation exchange), and how these results may be applied to low-level radioactive waste disposal sites.

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The main goal of this multi-part field and lab exercise is to introduce students to practical aspects of soil and water geochemistry. Some of the analyses for this lab are conducted in the field using field analytical instruments and rest of the analyses is conducted in a wet chemistry/geochemistry lab. There are several objectives:
1. Learn how to sample water and soil samples in a safe and effective manner
2. Collect basic aqueous chemical parameters in the field
3. Compare field collected data with that obtained using advanced instruments in the laboratory
4. Determine bulk physical and chemical properties of the soils in the lab
5. Determine trace and major element concentrations of the soils in the laboratory
At the end of this exercise students will gain a better appreciation for how soil and water quality is assessed in multiple ways. They are also introduced to basic "tools-of-the-trade" in the environmental geochemistry and also using Excel to make simple and advanced calculations as well as for plotting data. During preparation of lab reports, they are introduced to basic elements of an effective data-based technical paper.

Key words: urban watershed, soil chemistry, water chemistry, aqueous geochemistry, field analysis, analytical chemistry

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This exercise uses a suite of well logs (aka electric logs) to interpret lithology within a stratigraphic section and to determine fluid content within borehole rocks.

This series of three activities in tutorial format serves not only as an introduction to ArcGIS for our intro geology, hydrogeology, and structural geology courses but also as a mandatory refresher that students must complete before the first lab of our upper level course GIS for Geoscientists. The tutorial/refresher emphasizes techniques used by geoscientists. You might also be interested in our Full GIS course with links to all assignments.

These activities were developed to introduce students to the ArcGIS software package and help the begin developing their own place-based (Iowa) activities.

In this writing assingment, students research and analyze the Dust Bowl. Students analyze data, analyze and integrate different sources of information, and present a well developed written argument.

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Intro to Graphing is a 2-phase exercise that introduces students to Excel for the purposes of properly storing their data and producing graphs.

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This is a college-level adaptation of a chapter from the Earth Exploration Toolbook. The students download global quake data over a time range and use GIS to interpret the tectonic context.

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Learners modify elements of a tsunami wave tank to investigate the affect that near-coast bathymetry (submarine topography) and coastal landforms have on how far a tsunami can travel inland. Damaging tsunami are most commonly produced by subduction zone earthquakes, such as those that occur in Alaska.

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This assignment sequence seeks to stimulate students' thinking and writing about food production in the western Washington bioregion through a series of activities combining readings, class discussion, fieldwork, and writing assignments. Collaborative work in and outside of class culminates in students' interviewing local farmers and vendors at farmers markets and writing a surprising informative essay.

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Students examine data sets of topography, bathymetry, volcano location, earthquake location and size, and ocean floor age in Google Earth to determine the location and attributes of different types of plate tectonic boundaries. It helps them build their understanding of plate tectonics from data rather then from lecture.

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Exercise to recognize regional groundwater flow in the Cretaceous aquifers of the North Carolina and Virginia Coastal Plain and their changes through time. Includes interpreting flow before and after human withdrawals, so students can discover impacts on the groundwater system, especially for depletion and saltwater intrusion.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)