Introduction to Geology students are asked to write a two page (5-6 paragraph) editorial that addresses what geology is and why it is important to society. To gather the information for their editorial, students have to interview at least five individuals (two of whom have to be professionals or faculty members), and consult the mission statements and goals of professional geology organizations (i.e. AAPG, AGU, GSA, SEPM, etc.) Students then synthesize their research and construct a well-written editorial with appropriate citations that will either explain, persuade, criticize, or praise. In completing the assignment, students not only better understand why it is good to study geology, but also have an appreciation for the scope and content of an Intro to Geology course.
Teaching Tips
Adaptations that allow this activity to be successful in an online
environment
I have not used this activity in an online environment, although students in my face-to-face class submit their assignment online through learning management software (i.e. BlackBoard, Desire2Learn, etc.).

Elements of this activity that are most effective
This is effective because it requires that students become active in the learning process, and although the writing is minimal, they have to really pay attention to their wording, point of view, and purpose. Moreover, when students interview professionals, other faculty, their parents, or friends, they are often engaged in interesting conversations that provide important insights. I have found that this helps motivate students and excites them about the content of the course.

Recommendations for other faculty adapting this activity to their
own course:
I recommend that other faculty use the content of the editorials periodically by referring back to student responses throughout the duration of their courses. It helps draw students back into the course, and helps connect them to why they are studying geology in the first place. In years when written work are less than satisfactory, I often require students to swap editorials and provide peer critiques. This usually helps students who struggle with their writing.

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The purpose of this lesson is to research artificial selection. During this lesson, we will use fast growing plant crossing to model traditional agricultural practices and we will use Punnett squares to predict plant crossing outcomes. We will also use online simulations to learn about current biotechnology techniques used to make genetically modified crops. We will compare traditional agriculture to current biotechnology techniques that are being used to create pest resistant crops. We will discuss how artificial selection such as selective breeding and genetic engineering can impact organisms over time.

Ice core data allow students to explore a number of patterns while learning that researchers need to gather and interpret evidence to understand Earth's past. Students will explore core data collected in Western Greenland that document a few decades of Earth's atmosphere. Students are challenged to identify patterns and then use those patterns and background information to answer a few key questions. The data include measurements of temperature, dust, and atmospheric gases.
Downloadable files are provided for those who intend to run the activity in person. For those running the activity with an online or virtual class, a separate page includes all of the necessary information for students to complete the activity, including an interactive graph and background readings. Support videos are provided.

This assignment allows students to utilize real soil data/information presented online to learn how the some of the physical properties of the soil influence the chemistry of the soil and health of the ecosystem.

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Instructors: The Third Edition includes a set of test banks which are not available to the public. For access to these resources, please contact Dr. Barbara Tucker at btucker@daltonstate.edu.

Exploring Public Speaking: The Free College Public Speaking Textbook began as the brainchild of Dr. Kris Barton, Chair of the Department of Communication at Dalton State College. It also was made possible through a generous Textbook Transformation Grant in 2015 from Affordable Learning Georgia, a highly successful program of the University System of Georgia. Dr. Barton asked me to help him author/compile the text.

The goal was to provide a high-quality, usable, accessible, and low-cost textbook for the hundreds of students who take COMM 1110 at Dalton State College every year. This course is required of all degree-seeking students. We have been able to save students hundreds of thousands of dollars already with this text. Unexpectedly and happily, the text has also been downloaded close to 14,000 times (as of August 2018) all over the world and has been adopted at many other institutions.

Dr. Barton and I worked on creating the textbook from July 2015 until May 2016, with the goal of going live with the text in Summer of 2016. Tragically Dr. Barton passed away in early May, a reality that still does not seem real. He has been greatly missed as a friend, colleague, father, scholar, teacher, and mentor.

The launch of the book proceeded; however, due to the loss of Dr. Barton, the ancillaries were not finished. In Summer 2017 I took on a significant revision and updating which I named the Second Edition. I included in that edition information on college student success in the appendices. In January 2018, a colleague, Matthew LeHew, and I won a grant from the University System to create the ancillaries and improve the format for more accessibility. I decided to remove the “Dalton State” from the title and most examples for wider appeal. An appendix on library research retains the information for specific use of Roberts Library on our campus.

Over 90% of the book is original with Dr. Barton, me, or other colleagues at Dalton State College. Some parts, specifically from Chapters 9, 10, and 15, are adapted from another open resource public speaking text whose author prefers not to be cited.

This Third Edition, along with including necessary updates and being formatted with different software, includes four more appendices: one on online speaking, one on APA, one on humor and storytelling in public speaking, and one on Dalton State’s Library. I have also tried to clarify concepts, to provide “case studies” to show the rhetorical process, and include more outlines and examples.

We think this book is especially useful in coverage of PowerPoint, audience responsiveness, ethics in public speaking, special occasion speeches, and structure of speeches. Three ancillaries are available: electronic “flash cards” for study, Powerpoints on the 15 main chapters, and test banks for the 15 main chapters.

Thank you for downloading Exploring Public Speaking, and the co-authors and I truly wish you happy teaching and learning with it. We welcome input. If you choose to use it, let us know at btucker@daltonstate.edu.

Filtering is the process of removing or separating the unwanted part of a mixture. In signal processing, filtering is specifically used to remove or extract part of a signal, and this can be accomplished using an analog circuit or a digital device (such as a computer). In this lesson, students learn the impact filtering can have on different types of signals, the concepts of frequency and spectrum, and the connections these topics have to real-world signals such as musical signals. Students also learn the roles that these concepts play in designing different types of filters. The lesson content prepares students for the associated activity in which they use an online demo and a variety of filters to identify the message in a distress signal heavily corrupted by noise.

Students learn the basic principles of filtering as well as how to apply digital filters to extract part of an audio signal by using an interactive online demo website. They apply this knowledge in order to isolate a voice recording from a heavily noise-contaminated sound wave. After completing the associated lesson, expect students to be able to attempt (and many successfully finish) this activity with minimal help from the instructor.

The Enoch Pratt Free Public Library is based in Baltimore, Maryland. This site explain resources and links to assist patrons with accessing Movies and Film in the Public Domain.

Open textbooks are free, online learning materials with Creative Commons licenses. Many of the collections will have links to the same books, but each will have a particular focus, and items you can't find in other collections. OER repositories contain more than just open textbooks. All content featured within these pages is free but usage rights vary. Materials in these repositories are released under a Creative Commons license while some are in the public domain.

Students learn about the fundamental concepts important to fluid power, which includes both pneumatic (gas) and hydraulic (liquid) systems. Both systems contain four basic components: reservoir/receiver, pump/compressor, valve, cylinder. Students learn background information about fluid power—both pneumatic and hydraulic systems—including everyday applications in our world (bulldozers, front-end loaders, excavators, chair height lever adjustors, door closer dampers, dental drills, vehicle brakes) and related natural laws. After a few simple teacher demos, they learn about the four components in all fluid power systems, watch two 26-minute online videos about fluid power, complete a crossword puzzle of fluid power terms, and conduct a task card exercise. This prepares them to conduct the associated hands-on activity, using the Portable Fluid Power Demonstrator (teacher-prepared kits) to learn more about the properties of gases and liquids in addition to how forces are transmitted and multiplied within these systems.

This exercise is designed to present the realistic problems of forecasting weather. Lake effect snows are hard to forecast because they depend on information that isn't part of the regular set of information and involve some pretty specific things that integrate the location of the site with surrounding environment. Even places close by can get totally different forecasts. When you have a regional forecast, it doesn't really address lake effect snows, unless the forecaster really focuses. So the exercise aims to show the value of broad critical thinking in meteorology, and it is very dramatic, because the difference between 36 inches and whiteout and clear blue sky is undeniable. The exercise comes when students are 8 weeks into the class. The class is an AMS based class, which has already been described well in this workshop by Julie Snow from Slippery Rock. Our class is given in the fall semester and lake effect snow starts in October and is quite an issue in forecasts until April. The skills of a forecaster are tested, and you cannot use forecasts from nearby areas reliably. Finally, we live in a fantastic snow belt, so lake effect snow happens a lot. In a good year we get over 300 inches of snow, mostly at times that places nearby do not. You can drive to Houghton in the bright sun and be met by a wall of very active blizzard just a few miles out of town.

There are some excellent tutorials available from COMET, and outreach of the National Weather Service. I use one done by Greg Byrd, which is available online or in a power point format. There are a number of things that must be learned before forecasting. These include some fluid dynamics of plumes, latent heat, remote sensing, upper air mapping, and the use of models. We cannot cover all them completely. I try to introduce all these things and give people entry points into the juicy parts of these topics, but do not expect students to understand completely. One thing you can spend a long time on are the satellite images. Here is one, just to whet your interest: http://serc.carleton.edu/details/images/13586.html

I have the students make a list of the critical parameters they think might be needed for a successful lake effect forecast. This is a challenge to prepare, but the idea is to include things that are even marginally useful and to collect data to see what is most important. We get a list of parameters like this:


850 mb wind direction
850 mb temperature
Lake Superior surface temperature
fetch length
opposing bay?
Inversion layer height
topographic lift factor
wind shear evidence
upstream lake
upstream moisture factor
snow/ice cover issues


This list is pretty good, but deliberately not complete, and we encourage students to add other things they think might be important. The next step is to find where you can get this information. I have web data sources for most (see below), and some of them are interrelated. You can do this exercise for any site around Lake Superior or probably many other lakes as well. For specific sites, the fetch length, upstream lake and opposing bay information are obtainable directly from the wind direction if you have a good map (Google Earth). So a spreadsheet for parameters related to wind direction can be prepared in advance and these parameters can be immediately available from the wind direction. Nonetheless the issue of sources for all this stuff must be addressed in an effort that spans several hours. The use of models is needed to look into the future where possible.

Once students know what they are looking for and how to find it, the exercise starts its data collection. Every day or every 6 or 12 hours beginning when conditions get close to "LES favorable" students collect information on these LES predictors. They also make LES forecasts for each period and include that information in the spreadsheet. The next day the real snowfall data is added to the spreadsheet, and this can be used as validation data for the forecast. This data collection needs to be done for several weeks (November and December in my case, usually a good time for LES).

The data analysis is the most challenging part. Spreadsheet plots which test the sensitivity of various parameters singly and together are possible. There is a lot of sophistication possible if there is enough LES to analyze. Overall, results should be a good experience with imperfect data addressed to a real-time problem. Models and real data, remote sensing, and balloons are all integrated and there are quite obvious weaknesses.

On the final day of class student groups will compete by doing forecasting which employs the LES techniques. This might reflect the most recent snow event. A more important element of this submission will be their evaluation of LES prediction parameters. Not only do we consider the actual forecast, but we discuss which parameters were successful? Which are inconclusive? What suggestions for improved forecasts are possible from the experience? The format of this will be short presentations with time for discussion.

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In GEOG 489, you will learn advanced applications of Python for developing and customizing GIS software, designing user interfaces, solving complex geoprocessing tasks, and leveraging open source. The course consists of readings, walkthroughs, projects, quizzes, and discussions about advanced GIS programming concepts and techniques, and a final term project. It complements the material covered in GEOG 485: GIS Programming and Customization. Software covered in the course includes: Esri ArcGIS Pro/arcpy, Jupyter Notebook, Esri ArcGIS API for Python, QGIS, GDAL/OGR. Students will also use of the Git version control software for code management, and learn techniques for distributing Python applications to end users.

The purpose of the platform is to share the recorded Civil Engineering course videos and also to disseminate the open source teaching tools such as Moodle, OBS, Google Applications, Video editing software's etc.

This science resource covers a variety of topics; however, the specific URL is on Genetics. It has significant explanations on the basic Principles of Genetics, Co-dominance, Incomplete dominance, and Sex-Linked traits. The units have precise and manageable explanations, and there are numerous links and additional resources to support instructors and students to advance learning. The access to videos and online simulations enhances particular areas, and the diverse assessments support mastery of skills.
This is a very purposeful resource on genetics; it is useful to make learning more effective either as an overall instructional method or as an individualized learning supplement.

The German Frame-semantic Online Lexicon (G-FOL) is a prototype of a new kind of pedagogical dictionary. The goal is to help students learn how words are used in modern-day German. This online resource is different from traditional dictionaries and textbooks because it is based on the German FrameNet at the University of Texas at Austin, a digital archive of how German words are used in real life contexts. As such, students can easily access up-to-date information about the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic contexts in which a German word appears. In addition, each lexical entry provides information about a word’s register, frequency, and related meanings. Thanks to G-FOL’s web-based architecture, the lexicon easily links to other pedagogical resources in digital format and can be updated with new words or new usages of existing words.

Using some form of credit is a necessity for most adults. Unfortunately, some misuse credit, and the consequences can be devastating. The earlier young people learn about credit, the more likely they are to use it responsibly as adults. In this short course from our Ella’s Adventures series, your students will learn what credit is, why people use credit, and how interest can affect the final cost of a good or service when bought on credit.

In this course, your students will play the role of a freshman lawmaker in the U.S. House of Representatives trying to serve his or her constituents' goals and the long-term goals of the United States. Along the way, they'll learn about the federal budget process and how federal government initiatives and programs are funded.

Learn about the Great Depression using a crossword puzzle and word search. You can play online or print the activities. Also included are printable teacher's guides.

History holds many economic lessons. The Great Depression, in particular, is an event that provides the opportunity to teach and learn a great deal about economics-whether you're studying the economic reasons that the Depression took place, the factors that helped it come to an end or the impact on Americans who lived through it. This curriculum is designed to provide teachers with economic lessons that they can share with their students to help them understand this significant experience in U.S. history.

Learn about the Great Depression using a crossword puzzle and word search. You can play online or print the activities. Also included are printable teacher's guides.