The Keystone Pipeline is a complex project that raises important environmental, economic, …
The Keystone Pipeline is a complex project that raises important environmental, economic, and international policy issues. Tar sands from Alberta Canada will be mined and processed and transported on a ~1700 mile pipeline to refineries in the United States. How should decisions be made responsibly and ethically to balance societal energy needs with anticipated environmental impacts related to mining and processing the tar sands and the ultimate impacts on climate change.
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Geoethics Forums is a format for a classroom discussion and creative resolution …
Geoethics Forums is a format for a classroom discussion and creative resolution of an ethical issue. Students research a particular dilemma, identify stakeholders, and then consider possible solutions and tradeoffs working towards the most acceptable path.
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Geoethics Forums is a format for a classroom discussion and creative resolution …
Geoethics Forums is a format for a classroom discussion and creative resolution of an ethical issue. Students research a particular dilemma, identify stakeholders, and then consider possible solutions and tradeoffs working towards the most acceptable path. This example case study explores the use of strategic minerals for green and clean technology.
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Codes of Ethics for scientists have been formulated primarily by professional organizations. …
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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Collaborative, research-based activity of varying lengths. Main outcome is to identify potential …
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 exercise is designed to simulate how a basic geological investigation of …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 Reuse: This item …
Blank geologic timeline
Provenance: Nicole LaDue, Northern Illinois University Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
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. (Note: …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 lab serves to introduce students to geologic time and serves as …
This lab serves to introduce students to geologic time and serves as an outline for the course through the semester.
Students use a tape register and must mark out the corresponding length of each Geologic Era and Eon towards the beginning of the course. Above Western time line Navajo students construct their own time line correlating events as best as possible. As the course progresses starting from 4.6bya each week they must draw major events that occur marking correct subdivisions of time and ages ago. As fossil life gets more complex such as beginning in the Paleozoic students are must take different categories of fossils or different periods so all are doing different things but working together. (Similarly the Navajo time line builds. This time line is taped around the room---and I would have liked to paint the two time lines along the corridor of the building but Maintenance axed it.
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This exercise requires students to answer some questions about stress and fault …
This exercise requires students to answer some questions about stress and fault mechanics that relate to geologic maps. In part A) students must draw a cross section and Mohr circles and make some calculations to explain the slip history and mechanics of two generations of normal faults. In part B) students interpret the faulting history and fault mechanics of the Yerington District, Nevada, based on a classic geologic map and cross section by John Proffett. keywords: geologic map, cross section, normal faults, Mohr circle, Coulomb failure, Andersonian theory, frictional sliding, Byerlee's law
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