In this exercise students utilize data from geochemistry databases to analyze inputs …
In this exercise students utilize data from geochemistry databases to analyze inputs and outputs associated with arc volcanism.
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This tombstone weathering lab is designed to provide students with tangible understanding …
This tombstone weathering lab is designed to provide students with tangible understanding of chemical weathering and weathering rates. To prepare for this lab, students will have learned in previous labs to identify common minerals and rocks and will have attended lectures about the process of chemical weathering. During the first part of the lab we travel to the city cemetery to collect data on the age and extent of chemical weathering of tombstones that are made of limestone and igneous rocks. After collecting data for ~1 hour, we return to the computer lab where students use Microsoft Excel to analyze and interpret their data. Their task is to calculate a chemical weathering rate for limestone for our region and compare that rate to those from other regions. This activity gives students experience in the process of scientific inquiry: data collection, data analysis and data interpretation. Students develop Microsoft Excel skills: writing formulas, producing charts, understanding trendlines and R2 values.
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This kit is a historical overview of American representations of chemicals from …
This kit is a historical overview of American representations of chemicals from the three sisters to the Love Canal. It compares conflicting constructions about nuclear reactor safety, depleted uranium, Rachel Carson and DDT. Through analyzing diverse historic and contemporary media messages, students understand changing public knowledge, impressions and attitudes about chemicals in the environment.
From the scientific viewpoint, this evaluation will help the students see a …
From the scientific viewpoint, this evaluation will help the students see a process instead of just a data collection event, and they will get to practice estimating amounts. They will also need to determine the products of any reactions performed during the experiment. From the standpoint of sustainability, this evaluation is intended to help the student recognize the environmental "cost" of an experiment-in consumables used and in waste products generated.
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Create a painting using chlorophyll from plants. Activity from Weekly STEM in …
Create a painting using chlorophyll from plants. Activity from Weekly STEM in a Bag. Colorado Americorp agents in Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer, and Weld Counties. Work supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service under Americorps grant number 18AFHCO0010008. Opinions or points of view expressed in this lesson are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of or a position that is endorsed by the Corporation or the Americorps program. This resource is also available in Spanish in the linked file.
Click to watch Alain Plattner discuss his activity or watch the full webinar.We use MATLAB functions available from https://github.com/NSGeophysics/Seism-O to simulate the superimposition of different seismic waves recorded in a simple near-surface geophysics setting. The choice of the geophone layout influences how easy it is to discern the different wave types, which is crucial for the success of a near-surface seismics survey. Students learn which parameters they should try to estimate before the survey, why these parameters are crucial, and how they influence the setup of the survey.
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Choose Your Colorado Character. This is the Lesson 2 Understanding Colorado Agriculture …
Choose Your Colorado Character. This is the Lesson 2 Understanding Colorado Agriculture activity from Unit 8 Animal Systems, from the DIGS (Developing Individuals, Growing Stewards) AmeriCorps Curriculum from CSU. The curriculum focuses on introducing students in grades 3-5 to Colorado agriculture, industry and environmental issues. The curriculum is matched to State Standards 2021. The curriculum upon request. Visit: https://engagement.colostate.edu/programs-old/developing-individuals-growing-stewards/
Students research various options for new appliances and make purchasing decisions based …
Students research various options for new appliances and make purchasing decisions based not merely on purchase price, but also on energy efficiency, which has implications for the planet AND for longer-term personal finances. Students calculate the "payback period" for the more energy efficient appliance and calculate long-term savings.
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In an upper-level seminar course, students bear significant responsibility for their learning. …
In an upper-level seminar course, students bear significant responsibility for their learning. This activity provides the framework to help them identify the exact topics that they will discuss throughout a course in Environmental Analysis. The students are given constraints so that they don't either wander completely aimlessly through the environmental literature or pick only papers on their favorite topic. They are instead asked to dip into the literature to find papers that deal with analysis of pollutants in air, water, and solid matrices, and to have at least one that is relevant to climate change.
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The 'A Civil Action' 1-D Contaminant Transport Game is an EXCEL spreadsheet …
The 'A Civil Action' 1-D Contaminant Transport Game is an EXCEL spreadsheet that enables students to compute concentrations of TCE traveling in the groundwater flow system toward well H that emanate from the W.R. Grace site. The idea of the game is to draw students into learning some of the fundamental concepts about (1) how contaminants move in the subsurface and (2) how models can be used to test hypotheses. These concepts are taught within the context of the famous 'A Civil Action' trial described in the book by Jonathan Harr (1996) and the movie starring John Travolta (1998).
The spreadsheet computes values of hydraulic head, advective flow velocities and traveltimes, contaminant velocities, and contaminant concentrations at 20 locations along the flowpath from W.R. Grace to the Aberjona River. Breakthrough curves showing changes in concentration versus distance and changes in concentration versus time pop-up automatically (see below). The spreadsheet also creates graphs of advective and contaminant velocities versus distance.
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lab assignments intended to teach the basics of reading phylogenetic diagrams and …
lab assignments intended to teach the basics of reading phylogenetic diagrams and parsimony optimization.
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Students were provided with drawings of snowflakes and were asked to construct …
Students were provided with drawings of snowflakes and were asked to construct a cladogram of the snowflakes. The drawings were provided by the students themselves during a quiz a few weeks earlier. (The quiz was 1: write your name, 2: draw a snowflake). There were 17 students and therefore 17 snowflakes. Students are asked to construct a character table and determine various character states. Then students construct a second table showing each snowflake and its state for each of the characters. Finally, students are asked to use this to construct a cladogram, as best they can, from their character matrix. Students note homologies and count the steps in their cladograms.
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The first page of the presentation includes photos of 12 animals. I …
The first page of the presentation includes photos of 12 animals. I print this page, cut up the photos, and give a set of photos to each group of students. Working in groups of 2 or 3, the students spend ~10 minutes arranging the photos to depict the evolutionary relationships among the animals. This exercise is followed by 4 clicker questions about relationships that students commonly misconstrue due to convergence or shared primitive features. I use the clicker questions to initiate class discussion of group results. Then we discuss the evidence (anatomy, biochemistry) for current thinking about these relationships. Once we have established a consensus, students are asked to place pictures of a subset of the animals at the tips of the branches on a pre-designed cladogram. The activity gives me insight into students' preconceptions regarding vertebrate phylogeny, encourages students to identify their own misconceptions, promotes peer instruction and highlights problems associated with determining relationships based on shared primitive features. Placing the animals on a pre-designed cladogram allows students to translate their hypothesis about relationships into a visual diagram, an exercise that I hope will help students to extract the phylogenetic hypotheses depicted on cladograms in papers and textbooks. Once we have established a consensus cladogram, students must go one step further and add evidence (synapomorphies) to their cladograms. Students spend ~ 10 minutes brainstorming with their group to place synapormorphies at each node of the diagram. An example is provided for whales and hippos, groups for which the evidence of shared ancestry is difficult to recognize based on the anatomy of living specimens. After adding synapomorphies to their diagrams, students will work together as a class, contributing shared derived features to a group cladogram. If time permits, it would also be possible to complete the exercise with a gallery walk, where each group posts a copy of their cladogram + synapomorphies on the wall for other groups to examine and edit.
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Students observe clams (Mercenaria) in a salt water aquarium, paying attention to …
Students observe clams (Mercenaria) in a salt water aquarium, paying attention to siphons and any burrowing. They then remove the clams and describe the external morphology. The clams are then dissected, with special attention made to features (siphons, muscles) that leave observable marks on the shells. They are then provided the shells of a different genus (Mya) and asked to predict the soft tissue morphology and life mode.
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The topic of this video module is how to classify animals based …
The topic of this video module is how to classify animals based on how closely related they are. The main learning objective is that students will learn how to make phylogenetic trees based on both physical characteristics and on DNA sequence. Students will also learn why the objective and quantitative nature of DNA sequencing is preferable when it come to classifying animals based on how closely related they are. Knowledge prerequisites to this lesson include that students have some understanding of what DNA is and that they have a familiarity with the base-pairing rules and with writing a DNA sequence.
This worksheet walks students through how to use the igneous rock composition …
This worksheet walks students through how to use the igneous rock composition chart to identify rock types. Students are shown three different rocks and given the mineral percentages for each. Using the mineral percentages, student build a scale bar using colored segments to show the amount of different minerals. Students can then move their scale bar with the colored mineral segments across the igneous rock composition chart until the boundaries in the scale bar match the mineral field boundaries on the chart. Once the student finds a match, the student can see whether the rock is a granite, diorite, gabbro, or peridotite.
This worksheet allows students to complete this task physically, rather than mentally, and walks them through the process of igneous rock identification based on mineral composition. We find that it also makes the chart more understandable and approachable.
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 the CogSketch website: 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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Test for pollution by cleaning leaves and filtering rain water. Activity from …
Test for pollution by cleaning leaves and filtering rain water. Activity from Weekly STEM in a Bag. Colorado Americorp agents in Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer, and Weld Counties. Work supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service under Americorps grant number 18AFHCO0010008. Opinions or points of view expressed in this lesson are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of or a position that is endorsed by the Corporation or the Americorps program. This resource is also available in Spanish in the linked file.
This video documents the effects of increasing global temperatures on biodiversity (changes …
This video documents the effects of increasing global temperatures on biodiversity (changes in distribution, range, and numbers) and human populations. Adaptations to climate change are also outlined.
This activity is designed to help students visualize and explain the relationships …
This activity is designed to help students visualize and explain the relationships between various terms and concepts related to the science of climate change. After performing this activity students will (hopefully) be able to define various climate change terms and explain the process of climate change.
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