In this exercise, students process LiDAR data for the Hamilton College campus area to determine accurate elevations of wellheads of sampling wells on campus. Students use both GPS readings and orthophotos to determine wellhead locations and combine those with water levels, casing heights, and wellhead elevations to interpolate a groundwater surface under the campus and portray the groundwater in ArcScene. They also learn how to use Model Builder. You might also be interested in our Full GIS course with links to all assignments. You might also be interested in our webinar for the NYS GIS Association on A Simple Example of Working with LiDAR using ArcGIS and 3D Analyst.

(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.)

Using the question of how exercise and sporting events might be affected by climate, students are led to the basic questions of what causes climate change, how our climate might change, and what affect that might have on athletes and anyone undertaking strenuous exercise.

(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 do background reading on the atmosphere (see URLs below). The questions in this activity are divided up into atmospheric structure, stratospheric ozone, and acid rain. This activity helps students to understand the basic structure of the atmosphere as well as ozone and acid rain problems.

(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.)

This assignment is intended to have students use the map reading skills they have learned in previous labs and their understanding of the lower crust and upper mantle derived from classroom lectures and demonstrations to develop a three-dimensional picture the Southern Canadian Cordillera. I try to incorporate the notion of temporal change by asking students to describe the region at different times in the past and to speculate what the region would look like if certain tectonic events happened in the future.

Key words: tectonics, Cordillera,subduction, fold thrust belts

(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.)

This is a series of 5 assignments I assign outside of class time, with the purpose of getting students to explore the literature resources that are available for mineralogy. The inspiration for the exercises comes from my exasperation with the repeated questions: "Why do we have to know so many minerals?" and "What about these minerals do we have to know?" Rather than saying "Everything that is important," I hope to show students that what they need to know depends on what questions they hope to answer, and that mineralogy developed in historical context, parallel with other sciences.

(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.)

This module consists of a laboratory exercise and related homework problems on geochemical kinetics of mineral-solution reactions for undergraduate mineralogy. Students measure the grain sizes of equant halite crystals, and the time for complete dissolution of each grain. From these data, students retrieve a rate law, from several possible. Additional homework problems allow various chemical and physical transport processes in mineral-fluid systems to be evaluated.

The lab and homework illustrate several basic principles of chemical kinetics directly relevant to geology, including rate laws of reactions, diffusion, advective transport, and the relationship between rate-limiting mechanisms and crystal-surface morphology.

(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 read a short paper from the scientific literature on a narrowly focused mineralogical topic. Reading is guided by a 1-page set of questions and tasks, arranged in sequence with the paper, that make students look at the details of data, arguments, and conclusions. The tangible result is properly answered questions and typically some graphs, but the student gains a less tangible improved understanding of how to read scientific papers in general and an improved understanding of that particular paper in particular.

(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.)

1. Instructor identifies an appropriate number of key dates in the Precambrian to investigate.
2. Students break into groups (method to be determined by instructor) and each group will be assigned a particular time in the Precambrian (one author likes to have groups draw assignments out of hat!).
3. Students investigate their time period using appropriate source materials (we suggest the class notes, textbook and perhaps supplementary materials identified in the form of popular articles (e.g., Scientific American, Smithsonian, National Geographic, etc.) or websites.
Questions

Using your prior knowledge of your time period, what scientific equipment might you want to take with you?
What will you experience on your time travels?
Is there a place to land?
What is the temperature?
Can you breathe the atmosphere?
Do you need a life support system?
What is the atmosphere composed of?
Is there any water? What is its phase? Can you drink it?
Do you see any life, or evidence of its presence? How would you recognize the life?
What life do you expect to observe or not observe, and why?
What questions were you able to answer with your trip?
What questions were you unable to answer?
What aspects of the environment at this time most surprised or stuck you?

4. Group presentation
a) Create a very simple PowerPoint presentation (10 minutes) for the class.
b) Each group member must present part of the information.

(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.)

The Externalities Game is a non-cooperative game that teaches students about the concept of environmental externalities and allows them to directly experience the moral dimensions of collective action problems. It has been particularly effective for teaching students about the moral aspects of the climate change. Grades are used to create the tension between earning individual grade points at the expense of group benefit. This is part of a research project funded by the National Science Foundation.

(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.)

The classic physical optics textbook approach to double-refraction starts from Huyghens constructions of wave fronts and from the optical indicatrix. Optical indicatrices are useful for a systematic description of optical properties in crystals, but students do not usually consider them an easy subject, and, therefore, shy away from optical crystallography. This is unfortunate since a basic understanding of optical crystallography is prerequisite to a correct interpretation of phenomena observed with the polarizing microscope, the most commonly used tool for the detailed study of rocks.
Generally, students are comfortable with simple optical terms like reflection and refraction, while it is uncommon that they actually have seen double-refraction and noticed that crystals polarize light. Many have an unnecessarily complicated idea about vibration directions, interference colors, and interference figures; they assume such phenomena always require a microscope to observe. This is not so. Students well trained in thin section microscopy are often surprised that interference figures can be made visible macroscopically.
The purpose of the experiments below is to impart an intuitive understanding of the interaction between light and crystals and, thus, of optical crystallography. This will help to demystify what is seen in the polarizing microscope, and will better prepare the student for the introduction of optical indicatrices as 3-D models to describe the directional dependence of light velocities, and thus refractive indices in anisotropic crystals.

(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.)

In this experiment, students use a solar cooker to model the greenhouse effect. Students collect, track, and compare data including insolation, ambient temperature, and water temperature with various instruments such as a pyranometer, thermometers, and temperature probes. They also develop their own experiments (incorporating set up, controls, data collection and presentation) to examine the strength of ultraviolet radiation from the sun with various protective materials using uv-sensitive beads. They must then analyze the data, finding correlations and conclusions, and determine the best way to present the results (tables, graphs, write-up).

(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.)

In this activity, students experiment with the effects of Reynolds numbers (viscosity), particle shape, and particle concentration (flocculation) on settling velocity.

Testimony by expert witnesses is unique in a trial because qualified experts can present opinions as testimony, rather than merely stating implicit facts. This module links users to the Federal Rules of Evidence so they can view and interpret the rules regarding qualifying an expert. In addition to the definition of an expert witness, which is referenced in Article X of the Federal Rules of Evidence, information regarding trial exhibits and the form of trial exhibits are included. Links to mock trial videos are provided so that participants in a mock trial can view the courtroom arrangement and determine how to best utilize exhibits in the courtroom and in the mock trial.

This activity is designed to do a number of things. Topically, the exercise provides the students with the chance to examine the data from which the diversity curve of marine invertebrates has been constructed. The trends that the students notice both in the overall diversity and which fossil groups are making it up segue into the organismal half of the course. Analytically, the exercise gives students practice with online databases, spreadsheet analysis and display, and hypothesis testing as they compare the diversity histories of different groups.

(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.)

Ice core data allow students to explore a number of patterns while learning that researchers need to gather and interpret evidence to understand Earth's past. Students will explore core data collected in Western Greenland that document a few decades of Earth's atmosphere. Students are challenged to identify patterns and then use those patterns and background information to answer a few key questions. The data include measurements of temperature, dust, and atmospheric gases.
Downloadable files are provided for those who intend to run the activity in person. For those running the activity with an online or virtual class, a separate page includes all of the necessary information for students to complete the activity, including an interactive graph and background readings. Support videos are provided.

Students conduct a regional seismic hazard analysis of a region of the United States of their choosing*. Using on-line data, they bring together and investigate the interaction of multiple types of data [ground motion (measured by GPS from UNAVCO), historical earthquake data and fault data] to associate rates of deformation and earthquake activity with hazard potential. Students would develop an assessment of seismic hazard potential. This project also introduces the idea of fault loading and qualitative earthquake interaction.

(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.)

This is an exploration in Google Earth of the links between barrier island morphology and wave and tidal energy.

This assignment allows students to utilize real soil data/information presented online to learn how the some of the physical properties of the soil influence the chemistry of the soil and health of the ecosystem.

(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.)

This activity has students work together to summarize regional effects of climate change and other environmental issues, which a focus on how these issues may influence agriculture and water availability. Students present a region to the group and create a layperson summary of the effects of climate change and other environmental change on their region.

(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.)

At the end of this exercise students will be able to use computer-based software to draw crystal structures and visualize symmetries present in minerals. By varying the way in which atoms or groups of atoms are displayed, they will begin to see how atoms link through bonds. Students will also begin to investigate the effects of variable composition on bonding on unit cell parameters.

(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.)