This activity allows students to better understand radiometric dating and absolute dating techniques by calculating radiometric ages of zircon crystals. Their calculated ages then serve as tools to practice creating graphs, interpret analytic data, and reconstruct geologic events.

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In the hierarchical alignment activity, students are given multiple opportunities to align time to space in a linear representation. They begin by scaling a familiar amount of time (e.g. a personal time line) to a spatial representation (e.g. a meter stick), and progressively align increasing/decreasing amounts until completing the target unfamiliar time line (e.g. geologic time). For example, in the hierarchical alignment of geologic time, students can work through 10 time lines: personal, human lifespan, American history, Recorded history, human evolution, Cenozoic, Phanerozoic, Proterozoic, Archean, and then Hadean.

While the amount of time varies, the amount of space remains constant: in this example, students align all new temporal scales to one meter. For each time line, students are asked to locate specific events, hierarchicaly organized divisions of time, and the length of the time line in order to engage the students in thinking about that temporal scale. Additionally, every time students align a new temporal scale to space, they locate all previous scales relative to the current scale.

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Students conduct independent research on metal and metal ores resources, including exploring the human and environmental costs of metal mining, consumption, disposal, and recycling. A series of worksheets, completed outside of class, guide students in examining their own use and consumption of metals, learn the true importance of metals in their lives, and the impact of resource consumption to the human community.

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This lab is designed to help students apply hillslope diffusion equations (derived in class prior to the lab) to understand real-world hillslopes. The major goal is a deeper understanding of hillslope processes and the equations used to describe hillslope diffusion by observing the same factors described in the equations on real-world hillslopes.

In this lab, students will use data from real corals collected in Sumatra to track the sea-level and earthquake record of the region over the past century.

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In this lab, students will use data from real corals collected in Sumatra to date historical earthquakes and to track the history of uplift and subsidence of the region over the past century.

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To prepare for this project, students read the chapter on volcanoes in Grotzinger et al. In class, students receive specific instructions on what to include in their report, presentation as well as a specific volcanic eruption to investigate. Students individually research the volcanic eruption to learn more about a topic of interest to most students as well as to learn how to do research and how to write a paper. In the group project, they learn how to make an effective presentation. This presentation is self-contained and is supposed to be geared to a middle school audience. Some students do a very good job at explain the basic concepts to a student in that age group which means they really understand it.

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This site provides graphs that illustrate gold production for every five years from 1970 to 2004, and gold production by country. Links are also included to quarterly mine gold and silver production data, and yearly and cumulative gold and silver production.

Student analysis of the last 1000 years of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxia zone (informally "dead" zone) by using relative abundance of low-oxygen tolerant benthic foraminifera. In this example of environmental micropaleontology, students evaluate whether the "dead" zone has existed in its current form for many centuries or has become more intense in the time of increased anthropogenic input of organics (i.e., fertilizer).

This is one component of the Source to Sink Mini Lesson Set
This module is part of a larger set of mini-lessons that explores the variations in water and particulate mass flux from rivers that result from changing climate patterns and human activity in the Holocene. Long-period variations in runoff will be explored in this module on the Holocene Climatic Optimum, when intensification of the Southwest monsoon affected massively increased river discharge in South Asia. The exercise will detail the operation of the Asian monsoon and interpret stratigraphic evidence for increased sediment discharge during the Holocene Climatic Optimum using the Ganges-Brahmaputra as an example.

Home energy audit/retrofits allow students to apply thermodynamic principles to planning and executing a retrofit to make an existing home more energy efficient.

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Students are introduced to concepts in the course that give them the skills to understand geologic maps. These include structural geology, weathering processes, the geologic time scale, types of rocks and minerals, glacial geology, etc. They also look at several quadrangle maps as lab activities, including the Williamsville Quadrangle from Virginia and the Bright Angel Quadrangle from the Grand Canyon. This independent exercise allows students to further investigate their hometown or other areas of interest, and report on the geologic history. This further prepares them for more advanced courses and also gives them an appreciation of their surroundings, a key part of a geologist's training.

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This homework has two parts. In the first part, the students use Stoke's Law to determine (a) the relative sizes of olivine and plagioclase settling at the same velocity (and relate their answer to observations made on cumulate rocks in the lab, (b) the length of time it would take a xenolith-bearing basalt on Hawaii to reach the surface, and (c) to realize that pumice landing on seawater will float, not sink! In part 2, the students fill out a worksheet to see the effects of simultaneous fractional crystallization of olivine, clinopyroxene, and plagioclase on residual melt composition, and then determine whether the melt follows a tholeiitic or calcalkaline trend. The homework involves simple algebra, but several unit conversions and normalization of the results. After the students hand in the homework, we have a class discussion on the assumptions and problems associated with using Stoke's Law to model magmatic processes. We also work with different colored marbles to see the effects of fractional removal of different "minerals" on residual magma composition. My main goal in assigning this homework is to have students see that they can use simple math to come up with results for themselves, and then to have them think about the significance of those results.

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This homework has 2 main parts: In the first part, students are given bulk compositions for 6 volcanic rocks and asked to classify them, think about their normative compositions, and given likely tectonic settings for three of them. In the second part, they work with a complex binary phase diagram. In this part, they must think about components vs. phases, the lever rule, behavior at a peritectic point, and fractional removal of a phase. After completing this homework, I find that students are comfortable working with any binary diagram I give them.

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The first part of the project asked students to locate a peer-reviewed scientific research article found in the bibliography of the 2007 IPCC Working Group II Report. A librarian gave a 30 minute presentation in class on how to locate scholarly journals, government documents, and other materials using the JMU library website. Each student turned in a worksheet on which they listed their resource, provided a brief explanation of the methods and results of the research, and why they chose this paper. Each student was then asked to write a newsletter article that communicated results from a peer-reviewed climate change study in an understandable, interesting way to their fellow students and the general public. Students shared the content of their newsletter articles in small groups in class on the due date.

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Students form groups to work on a assigned hotspot chain. Each group gets to study a seamount trail from around the world and needs to present 15 slides that each have 3 main points and one nice graphical illustration or image.

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This activity provides the students with a data set of ages of some of the Hawaiian Volcanoes and seamounts and how far they are from the active volcanism (considered to be the location of the hotspot). By plotting the data on a graph and fitting the data with a line of best fit, the plate velocity can be estimated by taking the slope of the line.

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This lesson introduces the theory of mantle plumes and possible ways of finding evidence to support the theory.

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This lesson discusses the similarities and difference between Samoa and Hawaii. Both Samoa and Hawaii are island chains in the Pacific and thought to be the result of hotspots.

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