Codes of Ethics for scientists have been formulated primarily by professional organizations. Most of these codes enumerate principles that cover practical issues regarding the professional conduct of individuals, not the conduct of the organizations themselves. They basically call for traditionally honorable behavior. It is striking that, given that the work of these societies and their members is directly relevant to the future of the earth, most existing Codes of Ethics remain far from addressing our obligations to the planet itself. I propose a discussion of how the ethical obligations to the planet might be included in professional ethical codes.

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This exercise posits a hypothetical situation: you would like to purchase land that will provide your family with opportunities to fish and swim in a stream on your property. Additionally, you would like the land to afford some privacy. In order to find such a place, you need to locate land for sale that has a stream running through it and you want to confirm that the stream water is clean. The following activity illustrates how one can locate land with particular characteristics and also assess surface water quality for local bodies of water. The data you will use might pertain to any location where streams flow through residential areas.

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Students will look up an address (either of their choosing or instructor-provided) and assess the geologic characteristics and vulnerability of that location. Students will utilize datasets about geologic issues/hazards to learn more about how different geologic processes affect the location.

Collaborative, research-based activity of varying lengths. Main outcome is to identify potential vulnerabilities in the built environment and possible solutions.

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This website contains a geologic map of the Island Park, Idaho area. The map shows rocks, deposits, faults, calderas, flows, and other geologic features of interest.

This exercise is designed to simulate how a basic geological investigation of a site takes place. A basic geological investigation includes familiarizing yourself with the unconsolidated sediments, rocks, structural geology, and groundwater present at your site. As part of this exercise you will have to properly identify a variety of rock types and sediments, create maps that represent data you collected at each location, and complete a basic report of your findings (optional). Once completed, this exercise should give students a basic understanding of how the various concepts used throughout the semester are applied in the real world in the form of a geological investigation.

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Half way through the second semester of our year-long integrated Sed/Strat and Structure course we travel to Sheep Mountain, Wyoming where the students spend 5 days describing and measuring section and the constructing geologic and structural maps. The field data gathered then form the basis for a paper titled: "Geologic History of the Sheep Mountain Region". In addition to simply making geologic maps, stratigraphic sections and structural cross-sections, the students have to put the local geology into the broader contexts of the Big Horn Basin and sequences of western orogenies.

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This lab is part of a Lunar and Planetary Geology course offered to both geology and non-geology majors, and it involves basic geological mapping of an area within the Tyrrhena Patera region on Mars. Students are encouraged to work in groups to prepare a geological map from a photomosaic map and to interpret the geologic stratigraphy from a geological map of the greater area. This activity reinforces mapping skills as well as group work skills, and aims to teach students more about Martian stratigraphy and geology through a hands-on activity.

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This Historical Geology lab exercise is an accompaniment to lab class instruction about geologic structures (folding and faulting) and geologic maps. It also serves as an excellent introduction to the Geology of the state of Texas. "Coloring" geologic maps, an important part of the exercise, may seem like a very elementary learning technique. But this lab engages students actively, and since the subject is often already somewhat familiar to them, emphasizing both the geology and geography of Texas, students receive it enthusiastically.

This activity could be adapted to other regions, since most states have color 8 1/2 by 11 geologic maps available. A color map could be scanned and modified in Photoshop to create a simplified black and white version as was done in the assignment handout.

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Images of faulted strata, tilted turbidites, and beach rocks bring the field into the classroom, giving students practice in doing what geoscientists do. These images are examples of geologic puzzles.

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This activity explores the similarity and differences between the Newark Rift Basin and East African Rift.

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Students learn about the variables governing the brittle and ductile behavior of rocks, the simple geological structures associated with differential stress, and look at and apply real data to evaluate the depth to the brittle-ductile transition in the crust and how that depth can change temporarily due to sudden changes in stress introduced by large earthquakes.

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The introductory level course teaches geology majors basic skills in the context of a field-based problem, the integrating theme for the semester, so that they can more rapidly achieve an advanced skill level in their upper-division courses.

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Blank geologic timeline

Provenance: Nicole LaDue, Northern Illinois University
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Formative assessment questions using a classroom response system ("clickers") can be used to reveal students' spatial understanding.

Students are shown this diagram and instructed to "Click on the line where humans appeared on Earth." A follow-up question instructs students to "Click on the line where dinosaurs appeared on Earth."

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Radiometric age determination using parent/daughter composition and a radiometric decay curve.

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In this Geologic Time Resorts activity students do in-depth research on a given geologic time period of the Phanerozoic Eon and create brochures "selling" their time period as a resort destination.

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Students first navigate to the University of California Museum of Paleontology "The Geologic Timescale in Historical Perspective" website to answer a series of background questions about the geologic timescale. Students then navigate to the National Park Service Geologic Timescale website and use the Geologic Time Views Module to answer questions about major theories in geology and watch a video to answer questions about the age of the earth. Finally, students visit the National Climate Data Center "Exploring Weather & Climate Change Through the Powers of 10" website to answer questions about different scales of climate change.

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This is a 10-day field experience class that focuses on the geology of the Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau, culminating in a rim-to-rim backpack trip across the Grand Canyon, Arizona.

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This is a lab activity that is designed to help introductory, non-science majors integrate their geological knowledge near the end of the course. In this activity, students work in self-selected groups of up to four per group on the history of a sketch geological map.

Each student in the Geological Oceanography class writes a series of one-page papers for topics throughout the semester, presents one topic as a 3 to 5 minute oral presentation, and revises all papers as a portfolio for submission at the end of the semester. The eight topics are objects in the solar system, minerals, rocks, hydrothermal vents, volcanoes & earthquakes, marine sediments, hurricanes & typhoons, and tides.