Before this exercise, student should be briefly introduced to the concept that rocks can be deformed. I will usually show relevant images from the textbook regarding strike, dip, and basic fold geometry. In addition, I spend some time reviewing compass directions, and how to describe the orientation of a line. After the introduction, each student (or pair of students) is given a flexible piece of foam which is treated as an analog for a sedimentary bed. Students are asked to place their foam into the proper orientation, given the strike and dip measurements. Students are encouraged to help one another as the tasks become more complex.

Colorful foam sheets are used in a classroom or lab setting to help students understand the concept of strike and dip. To prepare for this exercise, students should be introduced to the basic concepts in a short lecture beforehand, and perhaps shown diagrams to give them a general idea of what the terms mean. The instructor will need to identify the N,S,E,W directions in the classroom; it is usually helpful to post sheets with this information and attach it to the walls. The students are then asked to use their sheets of foam to simulate the orientation of beds that are have a specific strike and dip. Once that has been mastered, the exercise can be expanded and students can be asked to demonstrate the trend and plunge of simple folds.

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Students are challenged to write a script and record a voicemail that is left 50 years in the future, describing changes that have taken place in the local environment based upon scientifically-accurate information and projections. The exercise allows students to select an issue of personal interest and communicate in a creative format.

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Average inquiry level: Structured
This inquiry-based lab about the principles of relative and numerical dating allows students to apply reason and logic to determine the order of geologic events, to experimentally create a radioactive decay and ingrowth diagram, and to calculate numerical ages using algebra. This lab is designed for face-to-face instruction.
By the end of lab, students will be able to:

Determine the order of geologic events using relative dating principles.
Calculate the age of rocks using numerical dating principles.
Select correctly from the range of available numerical dating tools to access Earth history at different scales and in different materials.
Explain how past events from geologic time influence the present and future.
Demonstrate numerical literacy around units, graph manipulation, and using formulas.

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Students are asked to match up lecturers with what day and time they teach, and how many students they have based on clues given from several different perspectives. In the second part of the activity, students are asked to learn more about the historic figures mentioned in the activity by doing reading and web research.

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Students must associate different dinosaur trackways with their locations and the rock formations containing the trackways based on clues given from various points of view.

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students are asked to match up students with their home state, and their states with the area and percentage of area of surface water that they contain, as well as where each of the states rank nationally in terms of water area.

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Students are asked to match up several unique fossils with the site and location where it was found and it's geologic age.

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Students are asked to match up five top Museums with 2 fossils that they have on display based on clues presented from various points of view.

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Students are asked to convert measurements in cubic feet per hour (cfh) to cubic feet per second (cfs) and then match up the names of the researchers measuring the flows at the river station with the correct flow rate and the year in which it was taken. There is also a second part in which students must graph the different flow rates with time and then answer questions by interpreting the information in the graph.

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In this two-part example, students are given clues about properties about the terrestrial and Jovian planets respectively and asked to match up the planet with the correct equatorial radius, mean orbital velocity, and period of rotation.

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Students are asked to match up the five largest mass extinction events with their relative dates, approximate duration, and severity (percentage of species that became extinct) based on clues given from various perspectives.

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Students are asked to match up each of the Stooges with their favorite group and species of dinosaur based on clues given from different perspectives.

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students are asked to resolve how many days each of 5 volcanologists spent at a volcano and what day they started for the volcano. There is also a second part where students are asked to do some additional research about volcanoes on the web.

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The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) is a software extension for ArcGIS that allows for automated shoreline change calculations along the coast. The user must supply the shoreline data and the software helps the user create measurement locations (transects) and completes the shoreline change calculations at each location. The result is a visual representation of the shoreline change along a coastline. This representation is far more useful for analysis that one overall average. Unusually high rates of erosion/accretion are easily recognized from the resulting map.
The study location is Rodanthe, NC. The data used in this exercise is the sample data provided by the USGS.

Students compare traditional paper-based techniques associated with estimating areal precipitation, watershed delineation, and modeling evapotranspiration. This assignment challenges students to consider the various assumptions involved with both analog and digital analyses and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches.

This lab reinforces the concepts of using coordinate systems for pinpointing locations on Earth's surface. Students are directed to search for background information online as a way to remind them of the concepts, and as a way to help them identify resources for future background help. They follow specific directions for converting between coordinate systems using ArcGIS software. Then they compare distances on the Earth for a local area using GCS units and UTM units. The end goal is to illustrate the utility of projected coordinate systems. Finally, they extract coordinate pairs from their maps and collect GPS coordinates from the same points in order to confirm the connection between GIS and GPS.

This project is used instead of a final exam in an upper level undergraduate course in Applied GIS. A student may propose their own project, or choose one from a list from the instructor. A brief proposal must be approved by the instructor before the project can begin. Students will construct a working, query-able database, use appropriate imagery, and use it to analyze a problem, understand cause and effect, and show changes with time. A final report must be submitted with all supporting documentation in digital form. Students also give a PP presentation in one of the last class meetings.

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This student project analyzes the Devonian Marcellus Shale in northwestern Pennsylvania for the potential for deep natural gas well development based on varying thickness and structural characteristics. The Marcellus has been successfully producing high gas volumes in well in northeastern parts of Pennsylvania, and there is presently a rapid movement to evaluate the potential production in other areas of the Commonwealth. However, there are notable environmental issues regarding the large water volumes necessary to fracture the formation to allow gas production, as well as the possibility of aquifer contamination at shallower levels.

GIS techniques, data sources, and other resources are so numerous and varied that, even if someone is doing GIS work regularly, it's common to say, "Now how did I do that last time?" or "Where did I get that data?". One of the main goals of my GIS course is to have students create a personal GIS portfolio that will be useful to them in the future, either for projects at Hamilton or in a job after graduation.
Portfolios must include, at a minimum, a spreadsheet of data sources and information about downloading and prepping data from each site; an annotated Word doc of useful web sites; a DVD collection of projects and data from the course; and an organized notebook that contains the items listed above plus all class handouts, exercises, and printouts of products.

What I stress in this assignment is that portfolios need to be more than collections of GIS stuff ��� they must be useful for the future. To make portfolios useful for the future, students have to give significant thought not only to organization but how they will be able to find information in their portfolios in the future and how they can build indexes, annotations, flow charts, etc. to make their portfolios more than a collection of pieces of paper in a binder.