The purpose of this task is for students to find different pairs of numbers that sum to 4.
Students learn how engineers gather data and model motion using vectors. They learn about using motion-tracking tools to observe, record, and analyze vectors associated with the motion of their own bodies. They do this qualitatively and quantitatively by analyzing several examples of their own body motion. As a final presentation, student teams act as engineering consultants and propose the use of (free) ARK Mirror technology to help sports teams evaluate body mechanics. A pre/post quiz is provided.
Storms can have devastating impacts on coastal communities. Typically, tropical storms like hurricanes get the most attention, but there are other types of storms that occur at more northern latitudes that can be just as destructive. For example, in January of 2018, Winter Storm Grayson caused more than 300,000 power outages and $1.1 billion in damage, and resulted in 22 confirmed casualties along the eastern seaboard. In this module, students will learn how barometric pressure changes during a storm, analyze the effect of storms on oceanographic variables, classify a storm as a bomb cyclone, and compare a bomb cyclone to a hurricane. Ultimately students will use their quantitative reasoning skills to manipulate and visualize data during storms in the northeastern United States.
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Preparation requires lecture and/or reading material on stereonet methods in plotting small circles, and on making stereonet rotations along small circles. In lab, students are given a description of the problem, along with a schematic cross section on the blackboard showing how the dip of the eastern fold limb is not constrained, but how the orientation of cross beds in an unoriented core are the only data available to help constrain the dip of the fold limb. Students are then given a while (~20 minutes) to think about and discuss how a solution can be made. An open class discussion follows, and then I guide the students through the answer. An alternative method is to let the students take a week to think about and solve the problem with little or no help.
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Question In many high-grade metamorphic belts around the world, rocks were buried 20-30 km beneath the surface during deformation and metamorphism. How deep is that relative to the cruising altitude of a typical commercial airplane flying across the country?
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Question
Over the last 70 million years or so, the Hawaiian Hot Spot has been pumping out lava, a total of about 775,000 km3 worth. As the Pacific Plate has moved over the hot spot, the volcanic peaks and plateaus of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain have formed. If all of that lava had erupted in California, how deeply would California be buried in lava?
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Question Suppose that you are building a new house. It will take about 90 kg (198 pounds) of copper to do the electrical wiring. In order to get the copper in the first place, someone needs to mine solid rock that contains copper, extract the copper minerals, throw away the waste rock, and smelt the copper minerals to produce copper metal. Rocks mined for copper typically contain only very small percentages of copper -- about 0.7% in the case of most of the big porphyry copper deposits of the world. How much rock would someone have to mine in order to extract enough copper to wire your new house?
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Question In 1983, an eruption began at Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii that has proved to be the largest and longest-lived eruption since records began in 1823. Lava has poured out of the volcano at an average rate of about 160 million m3 per year. To put those flow rates into perspective, let's suppose that the volcano was erupting directly into your classroom. At these flow rates, how long would it take to fill your classroom with lava?
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Question Let's suppose that you have a shoe box full of water (the box is waterproof, of course). The shoe box weighs about 9 kg (19.8 pounds). Suppose you emptied the box and filled it completely with rock (little or no air space). How much would it weigh? Let's empty the box again and fill it completely with pure gold. How much would the box weigh now?
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This Western Mining History database uses Mineral Resources Data System to list known Colorado historical mines by county. Each county site has links to the known mines within its borders. Some are known and named, others are unnamed. Mines should be assumed to be on private property unless other research is conducted. Data provided for each mine site include: Name, State, County, Elevation, Primary Mineral Mined, Latitude and Longitude and a link to Google Maps. Photos are provided where available. Additional information for some Mines are satellite photos, and ownership, business and historical records. 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 great database for student historical research or data and statistics classes. Consider becoming a member or making a donation to help further the work of the site.
This learning video is designed to develop critical thinking in students by encouraging them to work from basic principles to solve a puzzling mathematics problem that contains uncertainty. Materials for in-class activities include: a yard stick, a meter stick or a straight branch of a tree; a saw or equivalent to cut the stick; and a blackboard or equivalent. In this video lesson, during in-class sessions between video segments, students will learn among other things: 1) how to generate random numbers; 2) how to deal with probability; and 3) how to construct and draw portions of the X-Y plane that satisfy linear inequalities.
SSAC Physical Volcanology module. Students build a spreadsheet and apply the ideal gas law to model the velocity of a bubble rising in a viscous magma.
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Lab 1: the students begin by describing on a worksheet their own ideas
of delta formation using concept sketches and written descriptions of
the stages of formation, with only broad guidance from the instructor.
They are also asked to describe the key features of their concept
sketches, and to hypothesize how those features might develop (the
processes). The students have all been exposed to deltas in Physical
Geology, but likely only have rudimentary knowledge of them. Once they
have completed the worksheet, the entire class moves to a lab with a
stream table in it, preset to run a "model delta." The model has both a
web cam and a time-lapse web cam set up over the table to record the
development. The students help start the water flowing and the cameras
recording, then watch as it develops over the next 2-3 days.
Lab 2: In the second lab, we use grain-size analysis of the
stream-table delta as a means of testing some of their ideas from lab
1. The students as a class develop a strategy to sample the
stream-table delta for grain size, using a laser grain-size analyzer.
Each pair of students collect one sample, but are also asked to predict
the changes in grain size distribution for samples elsewhere in the
delta. The particle size analyzer rapidly provides results to the
students near the end of lab.
Lab 3: the final lab is a field trip to a pair of gravel pits that
expose the guts of two natural stranded deltas, including topset and
foreset beds. The students are asked to assess the landforms on a topo
map before arriving, and to describe the deposits at each site we
visit. On the final writeup, the students need to synthesize all the
elements of the three labs, along with input from our readings in the
textbook (Easterbrook) and McPhee's "Control of Nature."��
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Building Oscillation Seismic Simulation, or BOSS, is an opportunity for learners to explore the phenomenon of resonance for different building heights while performing a scientific experiment that employs mathematical skills. They experience how structures behave dynamically during an earthquake.
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Student pairs are given 10 minutes to create the biggest box possible using one piece of construction paper. Teams use only scissors and tape to each construct a box and determine how much puffed rice it can hold. Then, to meet the challenge, they improve their designs to create bigger boxes. They plot the class data, comparing measured to calculated volumes for each box, seeing the mathematical relationship. They discuss how the concepts of volume and design iteration are important for engineers. Making 3-D shapes also supports the development of spatial visualization skills. This activity and its associated lesson and activity all employ volume and geometry to cultivate seeing patterns and understanding scale models, practices used in engineering design to analyze the effectiveness of proposed design solutions.
In this lab exercise, students examine one or more metamorphic rocks and use various approaches to estimating and calculating the pressure-temperature conditions at which the rocks equilibrated. The exercise involves hand sample description, petrography, interpretation of phase diagrams, and calculations of a phase diagram or P-T conditions from given equations.
This is a very short exercise designed to get students to understand how the Gibbs energy equation is used to calculate the location of a reaction in P-T space. I use it in-class and have students work on it in groups.
Besides calculating the location of one reactions, students also have to think a bit about the significance of volume and entropy with regard to mineral stability.
This exercise is very straightforward EXCEPT that students get the units (bars, Kbar, cc, etc.) confused.
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This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach third graders about calculating and comparing capacities with illustrations (metric units).
In this lab activity, students learn about the relationships between sea level and glaciers during glacial and interglacial periods. First the students need to calculate the maximum sea level rise assuming all water stored in glaciers and ice caps will melt. Then, they are asked to calculate the ice sheet distribution during the last glacial maxima based on the information that sea level dropped by 125 m.
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Science students often have difficulty thinking about large spatial scales. The purpose of the exercise is to redo Eratosthenes' calculation of the radius of the Earth using data from to sites in ancient Egypt. The excercise teaches about the methodology of science - how Eratothenes figured it out - rather than worried about what the "right" answer is. It can also be used to discuss the role of models in geological thinking.
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