This activity is a field investigation where students will observe the topography of Big Stone Lake and generate questions about the history of this area.
Students will make observations at two different locations and will infer the geological events that happened at each location to explain what they see and create questions for further study.
This activity is a field investigation where students gather data on rock types and geologic formations to construct a geologic column that will help them to interpret the geologic history of the Cannon Falls area.
This observational inquiry activity involving careful descriptions of rocks and fossil including age will be used to create a scalar accurate geologic time scale. Students will observe and learn that the geologic time scale was created based on changes in fossil, rock, and atmospheric changes.
Students will make observations of weathering on different rock types in a cemetery. Students will also make observations of rock types of the Minneopa Falls.
This activity is a lab inquiry-base lesson on the rock cycle. Students will look at the parts of the rock cycle by examining three rocks. Based on their observations and data they collect they should be able to develop a hypothesis and an experiment to test this hypothesis.
This activity is a quantative writing activity where students will use writing and illustrations to show their knowledge of the basic rock cycle.
This activity is a field investigation where students go out to a water source and observe erosion that has taken place.
This field investigation of bedrock geology allows students to make observations, form questions, and conduct research to identify the evidence for volcanism in Minnesota.
This activity is a field investigation where students geologically map a defunct granite quarry in Saint Cloud Minnesota'sr Quarry Park.
This model-making activity gives students an opportunity visualize Newtonian forces acting on a single point as well as combined forces acting to produce synclines and anticlines in Earth's crust. Students will analyze models to interpret findings of plate movements.
This activity is a field investagation where students will discover answers to their questions about the rock cycle.
Ironton, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
Irwin, CO Mining Town. Western Mining History presents a brief summary of Colorado's Historical Mining Towns with links to additional Colorado resources for a mining town database and mines by county. Western Mining History is an historical site that provides information on mining, mining towns, the gold and silver rush, and Photos and maps of the western United States. This is a strong primary source resource that can be used for a variety of class research projects. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
In small groups, students make decisions on how to classify seven common objects as either minerals or non-minerals. The objects are: quartz, glass, wood, granite, copper, plastic, and ice. Students receive no prior instruction, and thus need to use their observations and their current conceptions of minerals in order to make and justify their classifications. After small groups have completed their classifications, a full-class discussion ensues, revealing differences among the groups, from which emerges a definition of "mineral".
Play-Doh model of a sedimentary wedge (yellow), tapering out between two other strata
Provenance: Carol Ormand Ph.D., Carleton College
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
Students complete several short, in-class exercises related to understanding isopach maps. We use Play-Doh models to illustrate features revealed in the isopach maps and to support student understanding of the relationship between geology, isopach maps, and structure contour maps. I also show several examples of isopach maps of geologically interesting features to illustrate how and why we use them.
(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 write a matlab code to calculate crustal thickness of 5 locations. Calculations will use topography (determined by running a matlab script that creates a clickable map) and nominal density values, and the assumption that the crust is in airy isostasy. Students will then run another script (with clickable map) to determine the actual crustal thickness of the locations. If the calculated and actual thicknesses are significantly different, students will discuss possible geodynamic reasons for the non-airy crustal thicknesses.
There are billions of galaxies filled with billions of stars. Each star has the potential to have planets orbiting it. Does life exist on some of those planets? Explore the question, “Is there life in space?” Discover how scientists find planets and other astronomical bodies through the wobble (also known as Doppler spectroscopy or radial-velocity) and transit methods. Compare zones of habitability around different star types, discovering the zone of liquid water possibility around each star type. Explore how scientists use spectroscopy to learn about atmospheres on distant planets. You will not be able to answer the module's framing question at the end of the module, but you will be able to explain how scientists find distant planets and moons and how they determine whether those astronomical bodies could be habitable.
The first lab activity for the course is called "Paleontology: Past, Present, and Future". In addition to discussing several documents related to present and future research directions in the field, students review a brief timeline of the historical development of paleontology as a science. Then they get their first opportunity to work directly with fossils.
Students are presented with a set of fossil specimens in boxes (with no identifying labels). Each student selects one fossil of their own. They are asked to make and record very close, detailed observations of the specimen, and to sketch the fossil. Then they are told to "think like it's 1600." Someone has brought this object, taken out of the local rocks, for the student to investigate. The student must write a "proof" that this fossil was obviously once alive, and is not just an interesting mineral or rock formation. They can use their observations, compare the specimen to other objects with which they're familiar, resort to pure logic, or apply any other avenue of argumentation they think will help make their case.
Note:
In the next lab, on fossil preservation and taphonomy, the students revisit their fossil specimen, and determine its mode of preservation. Indeed, the student's "pet fossil" could be used throughout the course to illustrate various components of the course content.
This lab allows students to look at variety of data from the North Anatolian fault in Turkey. Specifically, students have the oportunity to:
interpret seismograms from the Izmit earthquake in 1999 (while accessing some seismograph station information from IRIS)
make and interpret an earthquake focal mechanism solution based on these seismograms
locate the earthquake epicenter
calculate the moment magnitude of the earthquake using published data showing epicenter locations and displacement measurements
intepret historical data from the North Anatolian fault and tectonic-scale plate motion information to see what patterns occur in the regional seismicity.
(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.)