Provides students with an opportunity to work with and interpret magnetic intensity data (nT). Challenges them to explain magnetic intensity to an introductory geology student.

Students map one large hairpin parabolic dune in the Pinebush Preserve. They also profile the slopes on both proximal and distal sides of the dune. As a group, we take an ~ 2m long core of the dune sand to sample the sand beneath the soil profile. In the lab, students measure the particle size distribution of their sand samples, map the whole dune field from aerial photographs and a DEM, and estimate paleo-wind speed and direction. They then compare these data with modern wind data (available from the web) to answer the question of .just how different conditions were when the dune field was deposited
Uses online and/or real-time data
Addresses student fear of quantitative aspect and/or inadequate quantitative skills
Uses geomorphology to solve problems in other fields

(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.)

Students are briefed on Mars, NASA's goals at the planet and current analysis being completed for landing site selection. They complete a mock GIS analysis of a potential landing site by learning about their site and why it is scientifically important. Then they assess the engineering criteria to determine how safe it is and if the rover can navigate safely and efficiently. Finally, they use imagery to determine what the rover might find once on the ground and plan out a nominal traverse for the rover, including key locations for detailed study. Results of their work are presented to their peers and students try to convince the others that their landing site is the best choice.

Students write a short essay that compares the Permo-Triassic (Permo is short for Permian) mass extinction with the Cretaceous-Tertiary (Tertiary is the beginning of the Cenozoic) mass extinction. The use online resources and their textbooks as source material for their essay.

Students must include information about the magnitude of the extinction events. Additionally students describe the groups of organisms that were impacted by the event.

Students discuss the cause(s) of each the extinction event and compare the different causes. They explain how the cause impacted the different groups of organisms or why those particular groups were impacted.

The discussion must include some of the organisms that never recovered from the extinction.

(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.)

The ETBI Supports for Apprentices Group is composed of staff who support apprentices with literacy, numeracy, study skills and IT. The group is creating a series of maths workbooks for craft apprenticeships. The first series comprises:

Maths for Carpentry & Joinery Apprentices
Maths for Commis Chef Apprentices
Maths for Electrical Apprentices
Maths for Metal Fabrication Apprentices
Maths for Motor Mechanics
Maths for Plumbing Apprentices

The workbooks cover basic maths concepts and introduce more complex topics relevant to specific apprenticeships

You and a friend are hiking the Appalachian Trail when a storm comes through. You stop to eat, but find that all available firewood is too wet to start a fire. From your Chem 106 class, you remember that heat is given off by some chemical reactions; if you could mix two solutions together to produce an exothermic reaction, you might be able to cook the food you brought along for the hike. Luckily, being the dedicated chemist that you are, you never go anywhere without taking along a couple chemical solutions called X and Y just for times like this. The Virtual Lab contains solutions of compounds X and Y of various concentrations.

With printouts of typical GPS velocity vectors found near different tectonic boundaries and models of a GPS station, demonstrate how GPS work to measure ground motion.GPS velocity vectors point in the direction that a GPS station moves as the ground it is anchored to moves. The length of a velocity vector corresponds to the rate of motion. GPS velocity vectors thus provide useful information for how Earth's crust deforms in different tectonic settings.

(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.)

This is a combination field/lab exercise for an upper-level Sedimentology course. Students will use Brunton compasses to collect structural and sedimentological data. Orientation data will be analyzed using Rose diagrams.

(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.)

This set of assignments exposes students to statistics and data pertaining to economic wellbeing over time across racial (black-white) categories in the U.S.

This kit covers a historical overview of American representations of endangered species from the slaughter of the American buffalo to Palm plantations in Sumatra. It compares conflicting constructions about human/animal relations, rainforest biodiversity, the Northern Rockies gray wolf, frogs and Atrazine. Students decode how the relationship of animals and humans has been portrayed and passed on from generation to generation.

Lessons teach core knowledge about the science of climate change, explore conflicting views, and integrate critical thinking skills. Students will apply knowledge of climate change to a rigorous analysis of media messages through asking and answering questions about accuracy, currency, credibility, sourcing, and bias. Lessons address basic climate science, the causes of climate change, scientific debate and disinformation, the consequences of global warming, the precautionary principle, carbon footprints, moral choices, and the history of global warming in media, science, and politics.

This kit explores how sustainability within the Finger Lakes region of New York has been presented in the media with a particular focus on issues related to food, water and agriculture. Each of the seven lessons integrates media literacy and critical thinking with key knowledge and concepts related to sustainability. This kit is a companion to the nineteen-lesson collection, Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water and Agriculture.

This kit explores how sustainability has been presented in the media with a particular focus on issues related to food, water and agriculture. Each of the 19 lessons integrates media literacy and critical thinking into lessons about different aspect of sustainability. Constant themes throughout the kit include social justice, climate change, energy, economics and unintended consequences.

A one page assignment that uses online tutorials to give students a first exposure to the components of a cell and membrane.

This exercise, based on a suite of rocks from the contact metamorphic aureole of the Alta stock near Salt Lake City, Utah, is constructed for a mid to upper level undergraduate petrology course and does not require access to rocks and thin sections. It assumes students have already had a course in mineralogy and are familiar with photomicrographs, plotting mineral compositions on ternary diagrams, the phase rule, and Schreinemaker's rules. Some of these concepts (e.g., Schreinemaker's rules) could be introduced as part of this activity. Students who complete this exercise should be able to identify mineral assemblages common to metamorphosed siliceous dolostones, determine appropriate chemical systems to describe and plot minerals, infer metamorphic reactions from progressive changes in mineral assemblages, identify metamorphic reactions responsible for producing isograds mapped in the field, understand how rock and fluid compositions control mineral assemblages, and infer the temperature and fluid composition evolution of the Alta stock aureole based on T-X(CO2)diagrams.

(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.)

Students will examine mineral separates from sand samples collected from a number of rivers each of which drains a slightly different geologic terrane. Differences in mineralogic composition and mineral abundance will be used to suggest different provenance for each of the sand samples.
These sand samples may be treated as unknowns or the students may be informed of where the sand was sampled. At the end of the mineral separations and binocular microscope identification, the students may be allowed to consult geologic maps of the regions sampled to aid in their provenance determination.

(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.)

Optical Mineralogy and thin sections just blew me away when I first was exposed to them. (Of course that was the psychedelic 60's!) Because of my experience, I've always thought that we might attract a major or two if we introduced first-year students to interference colors and such. Therefore, this exercise is primarily intended to be used in an introductory (physical) geology class, perhaps for advanced students or as an extra credit project. It may also be appropriate as a brief introduction ("teaser"?) to optics in a mineralogy or optical class.

(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.)

You probably remember the mole from high school chemistry, but do you remember why it is useful to chemists? The goal of the following video is to give the "big picture" of the mole and its applications; information on how to use the mole in calculations can be found in another tutorial. Throughout this course, we will use the term "molecular weight" to refer to the mass of a mole of a substance (for instance, the molecular weight of oxygen (O2) is 32 g/mol). Recent textbooks refer to this as "molar mass" to emphasize (i) that this term refers to the mass, not the weight, of substance, and (ii) that the quantity refers to a mole of a substance, not a single molecule. "Molecular weight" may be less precise, but it remains the term that most practicing chemists use in the laboratory. For this reason, we continue to use "molecular weight" in this course.

Each spring, students in a 300-level field course collect samples from urban community gardens to monitor soil lead concentrations.

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Hydrology students are asked to participate in a service-learning project that involves a long-term stream monitoring project. The strengths of this laboratory exercise are that it integrates classroom knowledge with fieldwork, as well as providing the students with a "reason" for doing the lab.

(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.)