An understanding of the microscale structure and composition of sedimentary rocks is of undiminished importance in diverse fields (e.g., microscale chemical analysis cannot proceed without petrography), yet the curriculum is no longer offering undergraduates the opportunity to develop sufficient expertise. In an effort to bolster the exposure of undergraduates to sedimentary petrology, the Tutorial Petrographic Image Atlas was created. The basic components of the tutorial are petrographic images that are viewed in a static mode (no rotation, no animation, no timed observation). Text boxes relating to identification of components within the image are attached to specific mapped regions of the image. Both the mapped regions and the text are invisible until the student points and clicks on an active region of the image. In essence, the student must 'ask', "What is that?" Information ranges from simple one word identifications to lengthy paragraphs explaining the finer points of why something is what it is.

This is a highly interactive digital product that attempts to recreate certain elements of the laboratory petrographic experience including: a sense of exploration; high-quality petrographic images; a visual field dominated by the image; multiple examples of features viewed in diverse contexts; rich content relating to the identification and significance of features; active, inquiry-based learning.

Unlike real-time laboratory experiences with the petrographic microscope, the digital tutorial can be used at any time and place that a computer is available, does not require the presence of a microscope or samples or an expert, can be viewed repeatedly, has the technical content integrated with the image, gives the student undivided "attention" (unlike the TA, it doesn't wander to the other side of the lab), and rarely gives answers unless "asked."

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This project is designed based on 21st century skills and to help students engage in, experience, explore and evolve science. As a part of the activity students create a digital poster (infographic) using free online websites, such as: Piktochart, Checkthis, Glogster, Infogram, Easelly, Visually. They are not allowed to use powerpoint, learning to use these websites is one of the objectives of the activity.
Students are provided information on Copyright protection and Creative Commons, Referencing and Grading Criteria of the digital poster.
Students are assigned one mineral and 1 rock from each category of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic to describe on the digital poster.
Information provided in the textbook and power points such as physical and chemical properties ( included but not limited to: chemical composition, density, texture, color, etc.) and 1 or 2 images of each sample should be included on the poster. Also they are advised to add the most common uses of the samples or any other information that they find interesting, which they may find this information in class material or they may have to do a little research. If they use sources other than class material, they need to cite their references.

The activity is designed to help students conceptualize the spatiotemporal relationships between erosion and deposition across a convex topography, which serves as a proxy for understanding rill and gully formation, knickpoint migration, valley excavation, and the interplay between sediment supply and accommodation across distributary features. The exercise utilizes simplistic flume observations and measurements to generate digital terrain models (DTMs) of generated topographies; by changing individual flume parameters between experimental runs (such as discharge, slope, and sediment type and moisture content), students are able to determine controls on sediment dispersion.

The purpose of this week's lab is to
- prepare calibration standards
- use a UV-Vis spectrometer to determine the spectral peaks for several dye solutions, and create a calibration curve
- calculate how much of each single-element standard solution is needed to make a multi-element stock solution

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This is an online learning experience that transports learners around the world to different locations related to the Cretaceous -- Paleogene (K -- Pg) extinction event. Students will collect and analyze evidence to explain how natural events impact life on Earth.
The KPg extinction event, which occurred 66 mya, caused the mass extinction of nearly 75% of the plant and animal species on Earth, including the dinosaurs. It is marked by a thin layer of sediment which can be found throughout the world in marine and terrestrial rocks.

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In preparation for this assignment, students have read a brief section in their textbook on the fossilization process as it relates to dinosaurs. In addition they will have had one lecture on taphonomy that briefly covers the processes that transpire from the death of a dinosaur until its discovery by a paleontologist. Students work in groups. Each group is given a quarry map of a dinosaur locality and no other information. The exercise is framed as detecive work, where the "scene of the crime" is represented by the quarry map. The objective is to gather clues to make an informed intepretation. Students can obtain additional clues, but to do so, they must formulate a hypothesis that can be tested by the information they seek. However, they only get to formulate 10 hypotheses. An untestable hypothesis wastes a potential clue. Once students have gathered all their clues, they are encouraged to discuss the significance. Students write up their own interpretation and its limitations individually. The exercise gives students practice with taphonomic data and both its potential and limitations; hypothesis formulation; and examining differing viewpoints as group discussions often lead to debates about what information would be most important.

This contribution is modified from a published exercise "Directed Discovery of Crystal Structures Using Ball-and-Stick Models" [Mogk, 1997] . While the published exercise is based on student exploration of traditional ball-and-stick models of crystal structures, this modified version uses a similar "discovery-based" approach to teach the spatial relationships and crystal-chemical rules that govern the crystal structures of common minerals and crystalline solids, but instead uses the latest web-based crystallographic information and visualization programs. A few changes in the content have been made from the published exercise, mainly to accomodate the new digital media.

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This contribution is modified from a published exercise "Directed Discovery of Crystal Structures Using Ball-and-Stick Models" [Mogk, 1997] . While the published exercise is based on student exploration of traditional ball-and-stick models of crystal structures, this modified version uses a similar "discovery-based" approach and the latest online crystallographic information and visualization software to teach the spatial relationships and crystal-chemical rules that govern the crystal structures of common minerals and crystalline solids. A few changes in the content have been made from the published exercise, mainly to accommodate the new digital media.

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In this series of exercises, a kind of reductionist approach is used to direct the students attention to specific characteristics of a variety of ball and stick models. Through a series of leading questions, students must focus on specific relationships and must rationalize these relationships according to the fundamental principles of crystal chemistry and crystallography. In this way, students will simulate and replicate the kinds of questions we would normally ask in our professional careers as mineralogists. This approach also addresses other major recommendations from Project 2061: start with questions about nature, and concentrate on the collection and use of evidence. Other questions ask students to make connections to basic chemistry (e.g. bond types, relative strength of bonds, bond angles), determinative mineralogy (most likely place to develop cleavage), analytical techniques (e.g. preferred orientations for X-ray analysis), and so on. The final reflection questions will allow students to "discover" Pauling's Rules, a much more effective learning strategy than simple memorization of these rules (commonly with little or no understanding on the part of the students).

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Students are divided into small groups. Each group chooses a channel cross section and makes a discharge measurement both using a current meter and a surface float. Students share the data collected in the lab but each student calculates discharge on their own and answers related questions.
Designed for a geomorphology course

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In this quantitative field activity, students collect field data on channel geometry, flow velocity, and bed materials. Using these data, they apply flow resistance equations and sediment transport relations to estimate the bankfull discharge and to determine if the flow is sufficient to mobilize the bed.

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This is a student-centered activity for a synchronous online course where students access google slides to complete during a video conferencing session (eg. Zoom) in break out rooms. Students will be introduced to plate tectonics through a series of scaffolded mini activities which includes: active learning jigsaws, group research and presentations, and assessments. Students will familiarize themselves with types of plate boundaries as well as features found at plate boundaries using the Jules Verne Voyager Jr. website, and will use GPS data to visualize direction and speed of plate motion. Additional activities suggested include using Google Earth to visualize plate boundaries, drawing a transect across a plate boundary, and calculating the rate of plate motion using the Hawaiian Islands.

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This unit provides pre-service teachers in methods courses with resources for teaching geoscience content and utilizing the methods of geoscience. Pre-service teachers will prepare an annotated bibliography of instructional resources in the areas of geology, meteorology/climatology, oceanography, and astronomy. They will select one of these resources and prepare a full lesson plan based on the resource that emphasizes the methods of geoscience and also incorporates interdisciplinary material from either biology, chemistry, physics, or the social sciences.

Students are initially assigned to one of four maps of the world: Seismology, Volcanology, Geochronology or Topography. They are also given a map of the world's plate boundaries and are asked to classify the boundaries based upon the data from their assigned map. Students are then assigned to a tectonic plate, such that each plate group contains at least one "expert" on each map. As a group, they must classify their plate's boundaries using data from all four maps. Recent volcanic and seismic events are discussed in the plate tectonic context. Has minimal/no quantitative component Uses geophysics to solve problems in other fields

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The exercise is built around 4 global data maps: 1) Earthquake location and depth, 2) Location of recent volcanic activity, 3) Seafloor Age, and 4) Topography and Bathymetry
The exercise is based on the "jigsaw" concept, mixing the students to work in different groups during the exercise. DPB includes opportunities for all students to make oral presentations to their fellow students. The exercise is done over about 3 hours. I usually do it in 50 minute periods on three separate days, but it can also be done in a three hour lab period.
Although the data used in DPB are state-of-the-art, the exercise does not depend on student access to computers. Unlike many others, this exercise is based on observation and classification, rather than learning computer data manipulation skills.
The students enjoy DPB and many report it as the best activity of their semester! I hope that you will find it useful in your classroom!

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In this in-class activity, students are challenged to identify rock units and geologic features and determine the relative ages of these features without prior instruction in the classical methods of relative age determination.

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Students examine a video clip showing dead albatross chicks with their guts full of plastics. They are asked to write down a list of all the steps that lead to the chicks ingesting the plastic. Through pooling of information and group work the class creates a mind map of the steps including those that are geological, oceanographic and anthropogenic. This mind map becomes the tool for organizing the presentation of material through the course of the semester.

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I find that when assigning lengthy readings for in-class discussion, it is extremely helpful to guide students' preparation with specific questions, and incorporate these in worksheets that explicitly call for students to write out their responses before entering the classroom. These worksheets can provide some added structure for whole-class discussion, or can provide a specific agenda for review of the readings in small groups. Because these readings are more than a few years old, I have also found it useful to assign small groups of students to give brief reports that expand on and update the issues raised in the readings.

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In this series of inquiry-based exercises about volcanoes and plate tectonics, students will collect, plot, and interpret data and finish with a role-playing activity and a virtual field trip.

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In this project, students perform library research on an assigned marine animal, create a formatted poster of their topic, and share with their classmates what they've learned in a poster session, conducted in the way of poster sessions at science conferences. Afterward, students complete a written assignment where they are asked to reflect on their experience as a participant in a community of science students, their focused learning on their own marine animal, their larger learning about the diversity of marine life from their poster session participation, and what it implies about the intrinsic value of the ocean realm, and the need for conservation.
The outcomes for this assignment are aligned with course-specific outcomes articulated in the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum. They are:

Synthesize central concepts from assigned readings of scientific literature in written assignments.
Discuss/compare characteristics of diverse environments in the context of ocean science.
Interpret data generated by oceanographic techniques, and present written and oral summaries of their findings.
Explain the basic structure and function of the ocean realm, the impact of humans on it, and the impact of the ocean realm on humans.

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