To prepare for this activity, students receive background on bedforms and flow regimes in class and practice identifying and classifying bedforms from field photographs. Students are then given a map of a barrier beach/inlet/tidal delta complex in mid-coast Maine and asked to predict what bedforms they expect to find in specific sub-environments. During a subsequent field trip to the area, students observe, classify and map bedforms and relate them qualitatively to formative flows. Qualitative description and classification are supplemented by quantitative measurements of bedform morphology and orientation, and by GPS-located digital photographs. After the trip, students compare their predictions and observations of bedforms in the sub-environments, reflecting on the reasons for the differences and the evolution of their thinking. The exercise also serves to set the stage for subsequent quantitative studies of bedforms and bedload transport, as well as interpretation of sedimentary structures and clastic depositional environments in the geological record.

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Students are given the task of predicting where parasequence boundaries would exist within a vertical section of the Blackhawk Formation, Utah. This activity challenges students to apply their knowledge of bedforms in order to interpret the facies they observe. The students work in groups of two as they make their observations. The vertical section consists of four main outcrops to be observed by the students. After making their observations and interpretations of these four outcrops, the students then make predictions of what should be found up section. Students begin down section by observing the lowest section of the four outcrops. The students make observations about lithology, grain size, sedimentary structures and trace fossils. After recording their observations in their field notebook the class gathers for a discussion. Students are called on randomly to discuss what they observed. The class creates a group stratigraphic column on a white board and includes their observations to the right of the drawn profile. They are then asked to interpret what facies these observations represent. The students defend their interpretations and, as a group, agree upon an interpretation. The facies interpretation is then added to the white board and the group moves to the next outcrop up section. After observing, describing and interpreting each of the four outcrops the students are challenged to use all of the information gathered thus far to predict what facies should be observed further up section. This exercise provides an opportunity for the students to make and defend observations and interpretations. They also get a sense for the importance of Walther's Law and how it relates to sequence stratigraphy.

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This field mapping and map-making exercise is a capstone project for a course on Geological Maps. Over a weekend (~12 hours of field work), students collect lithologic and structural data from outcrops scattered over a one square mile area. Back in the classroom, students digitally compile their field data (outcrop, structure measurements, traverse locations) into ArcMAP. They infer geologic linework (faults and contacts) and units from this data in ArcMAP and then export these data layers into Illustrator. In Illustrator, they add ancillary map components (a cross section, description of map units, correlation diagram, map symbol legend,...) to create a final map at a 1:10,000 scale. Their maps are printed out on 11"x17" paper and saved as a pdf file. This exercise helps the students to appreciate how field data is collected and how these geologic facts are interpretively organized into a four-dimensional picture that is a geologic map.

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Students collect gps locational and strike and dip data on a day-long fieldtrip to Cliff Island. The data is then used in ArcGIS to make a bedrock geologic map of the island. The final map is exported from Arc and prepared in Adobe InDesign as a tabloid size poster.

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In this exercise, students will use the Neotoma database and ArcGIS Online to create a distribution map of modern collection localities of beetle taxa associated with an assemblage of fossil beetles from the Conklin Quarry site in eastern Iowa.

a data rich exercise to help students discover how organisms move in response to climate change

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Teach students about P-waves and S-waves by having them model them with their own bodies.

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Research reveals that if students are presented with negative information about environmental issues and they are not also provided with a plan for action, they often manifest denial on many levels. This exercise is designed to get students to directly address the emotions they face when learning about environmental issues and to make an action plan to address them in their individual lives.

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Working with data, students develop 3-D understandings of Earth structures using inference to construct a block diagram from a collection of 2-D information.

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X-ray diffraction is a quick and valuable tool for identifying minerals. Minerals are an integral portion of our everyday life, in addition to composing our planet! They help bring electricity into our homes and remove our bathtub rings. In this lab, students analyze the X-ray diffraction patterns of three household cleansers, Ajax, White Magic, and Soft Scrub, in order to identify the abrasive minerals in each.

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This activity features a problem set designed to make students think carefully about the link between phase diagrams and textures.

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In this activity students work through a binary eutectic phase diagram in small groups and try to determine a set of generalizations that explain the behavior of such systems (e.g., "the first liquid produced upon heating is always the eutectic composition").

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A weekly bioregion homework assignment exploring for the student local landscape changes. What were the past natural conditions and native uses to todays uses, as well as projected changes in the coming decades.

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Sample Socratic questions and answers regarding the biosphere.

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In this laboratory exercise students create a fence diagram cross section of the Atlantic Coastal Plain by correlating a sequence of well logs recorded along a NW -- SE transect through coastal North Carolina. The well logs in this exercise are based on actual well logs published by the United States Geological Survey, providing a realistic cross section of the Atlantic Coastal Plain when the exercise is completed. Students must make intelligent decisions as to how best to draw lithostratigraphic correlations between well logs, guided by information provided by biostratigraphic correlations. After completing this lab, students should have a better understanding of how strata are deposited in time and space under the control of transgressions and regressions, how geologists correlate strata, and they should be able to recognize disconformities and angular unconformities in cross sections.

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Students use the evolutionary distribution of oceanic phytoplankton fossils to date the age of pelagic and hemipelagic sedimentary rocks. They correlate this section to another as an exercise in oil prospecting.

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Students are given data for three unidentified hypothetical environments and asked to determine the relative effects of mixed layer thickness, sediment accumulation rate, and bioturbation rate based on a simple diffusion-based model of bioturbation.
Students are asked to identify the three unknown environments based on the data.
Students are then asked questions regarding the effects of the model on temporal resolution and porewater chemistry and the resulting fossil assemblages.

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The 50-minute group-based activity for hundreds of students starts by constructing bio-zones for a given set of fossil ranges. Results are reviewed using a sequence of clicker questions to discuss the optimal biostratigraphic decisions, the necessary types of thinking, and how to articulate a concise yet complete textual description of corresponding biozones.

A set of stratigraphic logs is then used to interpret changes in depositional environment across space and time. Students also decide (and justify decisions) on the optimal choice of fossils for use when interpreting variations in depositional environment. The final result is an interpreted geologic section based on stratigraphic and biostratigraphic data.

This interpretive exercise is only three weeks into a first course on Earth and life through time, so guidance is provided using carefully designed question sequences posed using "clicker" (personal response system) and/or for individual or whole class discussion.

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Storms can have devastating impacts on coastal communities. Typically, tropical storms like hurricanes get the most attention, but there are other types of storms that occur at more northern latitudes that can be just as destructive. For example, in January of 2018, Winter Storm Grayson caused more than 300,000 power outages and $1.1 billion in damage, and resulted in 22 confirmed casualties along the eastern seaboard. In this module, students will learn how barometric pressure changes during a storm, analyze the effect of storms on oceanographic variables, classify a storm as a bomb cyclone, and compare a bomb cyclone to a hurricane. Ultimately students will use their quantitative reasoning skills to manipulate and visualize data during storms in the northeastern United States.

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Each student selects a popular science book on a geoscience topic of interest to them, finds two book reviews of that book, and writes a book review that includes some description of the book as well as some commentary and review. Each student also gives a short (three-four minute) oral presentation of their review to their classmates (either stand-alone or with one Powerpoint slide).

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A boomburb is a new urban phenomena that has emerged in the last 20 years along with the growth of the Sunbelt and its suburban-dominated forms of urbanization. Boomburbs are rapidly growing suburban cities and represent a new metropolitan form; even as boomburbs grow, they remain essentially suburban in character. Nearly 9 million Americans live in boomburbs. In this activity students examine data to define "boomburb," observe the location of several boomburbs to make generalizations about their location and relationship with larger urbanized areas, and finally look at the services and urban functions provided in boomburbs along with problems and issues associated with these urban phenomena.