Students will investigate the history of the environmental justice movement in the United States by situating it within the context of the US civil rights and environmental movements. The unit also makes connections to issues of environmental equity on a global scale. Student-centered discussions will connect environmental justice with the scientific background of the issues, and in particular its interrelatedness with hydrologic concepts.

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In this unit, students investigate the history of the environmental justice (EJ) movement in the United States, situating it within the context of the US civil rights and environmental movements. Students also make connections to issues of environmental equity on a global scale. The unit serves as a foundation for exploring the scientific background of environmental justice issues in subsequent units, particularly the interrelatedness of hydrology and hydrologic concepts.

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Do geoscientists understand the meaning of floods and their role within the broader context of ecological and societal impacts? In this unit, students are introduced to the concept of flooding and the mechanisms that cause different types of floods in natural and urban environment. Students will interpret annual maximum flow series to relate the magnitude of past flow events to their frequency. Students will explore different datasets to describe the magnitude of flood, its spatial extent in the form of a map and its socio/economic impacts.

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Online-ready: The exercise is electronic and could be done individually or in small online groups. Lecture is designed to be interactive and really needs to be done synchronously.

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This introductory lesson will build the foundation for students to progress through the remaining units by defining food security and discussing the major factors contributing to food insecurity today (climate change, population growth, economic downturns, and change in global food consumption/wealth). Tied intimately to global food security is the concept of malnutrition. In this unit, students will engage with the three subcategories of malnutrition, which will provide an important basis for understanding the variation of food security across the globe and will challenge often held assumptions that food security only comes in the form of extreme hunger. Finally, students will be introduced to the global food system and will use the case study of chocolate to describe its components. As a formative assessment, students will take a five question multiple-choice quiz on the concept of malnutrition and the major causes of global food insecurity.

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In this unit, students engage in a scaffolded class discussion designed to encourage students to move from a broad focus on science relevancy to locally important societal issues relevant to soils. They then relate what they learned during this discussion to the major assessment of this module, the Soils, Systems, and Society Kit (the Kit) assignment, and begin exploring potential focal issues for this assignment. Lastly, the unit introduces concept mapping, and pre-service teachers create a starting concept map for Earth systems, which is a required element of the Kit.

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This unit introduces systems and systems thinking. The unit is easily adaptable to any course and includes an introduction of terminology, motivation for using systems thinking, and practice reading, as well as interpreting and evaluating systems diagrams. Note that an Internet connection and speakers are required to play the audio file in Part 3.

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In this unit, students will identify mass extinctions as paleontologists have done and recognize and understand the "pull of the recent," that is, the human tendency to know more about events closer to the present. Students prepare by reading an article prior to class that describes mass extinctions. At the beginning of class, students place historical events along a physical model of the geologic timescale. Next, they examine a diagram showing changes in biodiversity across the last 542 million years and identify patterns in those data. Students and the instructor then finish class by discussing that although fossils (and rocks) are critical for explaining the present and predicting the future, their mechanisms of preservation biases our understanding of Earth's past.

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This unit introduces the hydrological cycle to provide context for the module as a whole. It particularly focuses on those portions of the hydrological cycle that take place on land and that form the basis for water that is used by society. Students conduct a stakeholder analysis to better understand societal issues around water. Then the scientific exercise of the unit emphasizes quantitative approaches to describing the critical portions that humans have access to: surface water and shallow ground water. Students calculate residence times and fluxes between reservoirs and track water particles on an annual basis. They also explore available data sets for specific reservoirs such as snowpack and rivers.

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Online-adaptable: This exercise could be converted to online whole-class discussions/lectures and a breakout group activity. Would be best done synchronously.

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How can geoscientists identify and quantify landslide events using remote sensing data? The analysis of mass wasting events from remotely sensed data is a complicated task, burdened by the range of geomorphic signatures associated with different types of events and the resolution of digital imagery and remotely sensed data. In this unit, students will use high-resolution elevation data (LiDAR and maybe SfM sourced) and satellite digital imagery to identify and quantify landslide size and volume. To increase their recognition of geomorphic features associated with landslides, students will experiment with image processing tools (e.g. slope, curvature, etc.). The goal of the exercises in Unit 1 is to familiarize students with the techniques needed to assess landslide sites that affect human systems and infrastructure. The effects of landslides can result in the isolation of communities, loss of power and water utilities, and loss of communication services. Understanding the metrics of landslide sites is an important first step to plan intelligently for future development. This unit uses CloudCompare and ArcMap or QGIS software.

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Online-ready: The exercise is electronic and could be done individually or in small online groups. Lecture can be done in synchronous or asynchronous online format. Students do use new software, so having a mechanism for rapid faculty response is essential.

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Unit 1 introduces the Water Sustainability in Cities Module. The content establishes the foundation definitions of sustainability, sustainable development, and water sustainability in cities. Key sustainability concepts are introduced and examples provided for water in cities. Students are engaged in activities to help them explore the definitions of water sustainability in cities and apply systems thinking. The unit materials are designed with flexibility in mind such that instructors can adapt the module to their own courses and context. The unit may also be used on its own to provide an introductory water sustainability lesson without using other units in the module.

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How can data from an impending volcanic dome-building event be used to forecast the hazard to a surrounding community? In this activity, students will examine geodetic data (GPS and lidar) and seismic data in a modified gallery walk format (for either small and large enrollment courses) to assess volcanic activity and determine the USGS alert level for the volcano. In addition, students will use a hazard map for the Mount St. Helens area to determine which towns are at risk if a large eruption occurs. An optional post-class activity asks students to develop a way to communicate possible risks to local communities.

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Online-adaptable: This unit would take a bit more effort to move to online, but if one is teaching synchronously it could still be done with interactive online lecture/discussions. The gallery walk component can also be successfully done online with some preparation. For instance, the images and questions can be available for online viewing with space available for student comments. Online groups then rotate through the stations virtually.

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In this unit, students explore the role of ocean circulation in climate modification and bioproductivity. The activities require students to interpret the effect of horizontal and vertical seawater movement on heat distribution, carbon dioxide dissolution, and nutrient availability. Students will use their new knowledge to predict how those parameters may change as a result of major shifts in ocean circulation associated with global climate change.

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Unit 1 serves as an introduction to Earth's climate system components. After exploring climate data, students are introduced to the natural processes responsible for global climate and how specific variables are interpreted by scientists.

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How are rising sea levels already influencing the developing nation of Bangladesh, and what are the anticipated consequences of additional sea level rise in the next century? This introduction to the Ice and Sea Level Changes module is designed to prompt student consideration of the economic, social, political, and health impacts of sea level change. They will revisit the impacts of sea level change on society in Unit 5 when they investigate implications for New York City and Southern California.

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Online-ready: This opening class discussion about climate change and societal impacts could be converted to an online discussion format.

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This unit introduces students to Structure from Motion (SfM). SfM is a photogrammetric technique that uses overlapping images to construct a 3D model of the scene and has widespread research applications in geodesy, geomorphology, structural geology, and other subfields of geology. SfM can be collected from a hand-held camera or an airborne platform such as an aircraft, tethered balloon, kite, or UAS (unmanned aerial system). After an introduction to the basics of SfM, students will design and conduct their own survey of a geologic feature, followed by an optional (but highly encouraged) introductory exploration of SfM data after returning from the field.

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Online teaching: This unit was adapted to an online remote field teaching activity. Getting started with Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry (remote field collection).

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How have mass-wasting events affected communities, and what lessons have we learned from these natural disasters that might help us mitigate future hazards? In this unit, students answer these questions by being introduced to the landscape and societal characteristics that contributed to loss of property and life during the 1970 Nevado Huascar��n (Peru) and 2010 San Fratello (Sicily, Italy) events.

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Online-ready: This opening class discussion about landslides and societal impacts could easily be converted to an online discussion format.

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Field experience using geodetic and geophysical tools provides a unique opportunity for upper-level undergraduates to learn research skills applicable to their future graduate research or career path. This unit introduces students to terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), a ground-based, remote-sensing tool that generates three-dimensional point clouds, that has widespread research applications in geodesy, geomorphology, structural geology, and other subfields of geology. After an introduction to the basics of TLS, students will design and conduct their own survey of a geologic feature, followed by an optional introductory exploration of TLS data after returning from the field.

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This unit is designed to function as three days of instruction in an introductory urban planning, environmental science/studies or public health course.

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In this three to four class unit, students will:

Assess the case for a global water crisis and its relevance in America.
Expand their understanding of sustainability as a contestable concept and movement.
Consider water resource-management objectives through the lens of sustainability.
Analyze region-specific examples of unsustainable use of water for agriculture.

This is largely achieved via student discussion and evaluation of texts and statistics provided to them. The text and statistics are derived from a variety of disciplines, mostly not from the geosciences. As such, the unit is very interdisciplinary, requiring students to synthesize disparate information and take a holistic perspective on water issues.

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This unit will introduce methods and data from Critical Zone observatories as well as methods that scientists use in their research. These activities will provide an introduction to methods used in later units and help students develop a research proposal for the summative assessment activity.
In this unit, students will be introduced to basic scientific methods such as:

How to create an effective annotated bibliography.
How to use software such as MS Excel to graph, analyze, and interpret data.

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