Students describe and interpret glacial features exposed in gravel pits and outcrops.

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The goal of this assignment is for students to recognize that adding some randomization and "noise" to a model yields different results each time we run the model, and we can pull some useful statistics from these model results. This introduces the concept of a Monte Carlo method to the students.

Using a glacier proxy, students design an experiment to connect glacial erosion with glacial flow. Students choose from a variety of materials, determined what question they want their experiment or experiments to answer, design the procedure, test the experiment, and write up a lab report on the experiment.

Prior to this assignment, students read Chapter 2 (Earth's Climate System Today) of W. Ruddiman's Earth's Climate book and online information about the TRMM dataset. In the computer lab, students download the instructions and the pre-processed dataset from course website. The lab assignment consists of GIS raster algebra operations used to generate average precipitation rasters and to calculate anomalies. Throughout the assignment, students are asked to interpret and explain global precipitation patterns.

In this project students learn through lecture, video, and sketching about the Coriolis effect, the "Six-Cell Generalized Global Atmospheric Circulation Model", the shifting ITCZ, the Indian Monsoon, and its impact on the day-to-day lives of the people of India.
The outcomes for this assignment are aligned with course-specific outcomes articulated in the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum. They are:

Discuss/compare characteristics of diverse cultures and environments in the context of ocean science.
Explain the basic structure and function of the ocean realm, the impact of humans on it, and the impact of the ocean realm on humans.

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This mini-module describes a two-day mini-unit integrating global climate changein Woolf's book Orlando: A Biography. The module connects historical climate records to literary descriptions, discusses the difference between weather and climate, and invites conversation about climate-driven trends in phenology.

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This module introduces students to the basic science of climate change, as well as the concepts of vulnerability and adaptation in the context of climate change in different regions of the world.

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Title page for Global / Diversity Learning in Chemistry

Provenance: Adapted from the New York Times
Reuse: If you wish to use this item outside this site in ways that exceed fair use (see http://fairuse.stanford.edu/) you must seek permission from its creator.

Students write a research paper (750--1000 words) on a topic of global importance in chemistry, technology, health, environmental sustainability, or another related field. The paper explores the issue by identifying several communities affected by the issue in different ways. At the culmination of the project, students draw on a variety of media resources to describe the several perspectives, and conclude by advocating one approach to addressing the issue. Students assemble their own resources through library research, and are free to model their work on examples provided on the course Blackboard website.

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This module series is designed to teach introductory-level college-age geology students about the basic processes and dynamics that produce earthquakes. Students learn about how and why earthquakes are distributed at plate boundaries using 3D visualizations of real data. These 3D visualizations were designed to allow students to more easily visualize and experience complex and highly visual geologic concepts. 3D visualizations allow students to examine features of the Earth from many different scales and perspectives, and to view both the space and time distributions of events. For example, students can view the earth from the perspective of the entire solar system, or from one point on the Earth's surface, and can visualize how earthquakes along a fault occur through time. By teaching about earthquakes and plate tectonics using a real data set that students can visualize in three-dimensions, students learn how scientists analyze large data sets to look for patterns and test hypotheses. At the end of this module students will understand how earthquakes are distributed on Earth, and how different types of plate boundaries result in different magnitudes and distributions of earthquakes.

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At the half-way point in the course, students will have knowledge of the biology and ecology of fisheries around the world. Students will individually select a local fishery of interest and choose a stakeholder who participates in some capacity in the fishery. Students will contact this stakeholder, introduce themselves and the project, and arrange an interview. Students will be required to formulate a research question that the interview seeks to answer and write at least 10 questions prior to the interview. After the interview, students will answer their research question using the material gained in the interview, and other relevant literature.

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Geological processes at the mid-ocean ridges are responsible for the bulk of the Earth's heat loss and volcanic activity. The compositions of materials erupted at these locations, dominantly mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB's), have profound implications for the inner workings of the Earth's mantle, the construction of oceanic crust, and global plate tectonics. In this exercise, students replicate a portion of a classic paper on MORB geochemistry [Klein and Langmuir, 1987] , but using a much larger global geochemical dataset downloaded from the PETDB database. Through a series of activities and questions, students are encouraged to think about the petrologic and geodynamic processes controlling the composition of Earth's most abundant volcanic rocks.

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Students create and modify a STELLA model of the global phosphorus cycle to test a number of scenarios.

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Students analyze the global temperature record from 1867 to the present. Long-term trends and shorter-term fluctuations are both evaluated.

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The goal of this activity is to investigate global topographic and tectonic features, especially the tectonic plates and their boundaries. Using a double-page size digital topographic map of the Earth that includes both land and sea floor topography, students are asked to draw plate boundaries, deduce plate motions and interactions, and explore the connections between topography and tectonic processes at the global scale.

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This is a teaching module, directed to undergraduate students in applied mathematics, that presents a Zonal Energy Balance Model to describe the evolution of the latitudinal distribution of Earth's surface temperature subject to incremental levels of cumulative carbon emissions in the atmosphere. A strategy to avert "dangerous levels" of global warming is imbedded in the model. Students working with the module will write a computer code, using a software such as MATLAB or Mathematica, to obtain numerical solutions of the model and simulate strategies that guarantee controlled levels of global warming.

Detailed, annotated example of Socratic questioning for topics of climate change, global warming, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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Brian Fagan is an emeritus professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara who has written several books about past climate change and its effect on the course of European history. His latest book, "The Great Warming," focuses on the Medieval Warm Period (circa 10th to 14th centuries) during which the North Atlantic region experienced an unusually warm climate, and discusses historical events and trends that can be correlated with this climatic change. This assignment uses this book, along with student-retrieved newspaper articles, as the basis for a research paper that addresses the issue of global warming, its effect on past civilizations and its anticipated effect on the future of the citizens of New York City.

Based primarily on "The Great Warming", students address the following questions in a 5 page paper:

What methods and data sources do scientists use to determine climates of the past? How reliable are these various approaches?
How was European climate different during the Medieval Warm Period, and how did this climate affect the lives of people in Europe?
How was climate different during the Medieval Warm Period for one other region of personal interest, and how did this climate affect the lives of people who lived in that region?

Using information from "The Great Warming" and three to six articles from past issues of a major newspaper, such as the New York Times, students determine probable effects of global warming to the future populations of either their home city, or of the region for which they documented past climate change.

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In the first part of this activity, students think about their personal carbon emissions and driving habits. They reflect on what might be done to reduce our carbon emissions, as individuals and as a society as a whole. In the second part of the activity, students calculate how much sea level would rise if a range of ice melting scenarios occur. They then examine topographic maps of local coastlines to see how different regions would be affected under the range of scenarios.

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Possible pre-course reading of the Introduction of:
"Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits" Ed. Bj��rn Lomborg
Global Warming and You--handout (Microsoft Word 44kB Oct27 10)

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Scientists say the planet is warming because of human activities, namely the greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere when burning fossil fuels. But, how do we know? How do scientists know?
Students are presented with the following questions:
1) What makes a greenhouse gas a greenhouse gas?
2) Is carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas? [Instructor: How do we know?]
3) Is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing? How do we know?
4) Is carbon dioxide [in the atmosphere] increasing because of human activities? [Instructor: How do we know?]
---- Discussion of results and prediction of what students expect will happen to global average temperature...
5) Is global average temperature increasing? How do we know?

Separate groups of students research just one question each on the internet and submit a brief summary to the instructor. The instructor and class go over results for just the first four questions. The instructor addresses "How do we know" for questions 2 and 4. Then, students are asked what they think will happen to global average temperature based on results of the first four questions (i.e. make an hypothesis). Finally, the results from the last group are presented and students are asked to discuss how observed global temperature changes compare with their hypothesis.

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