Reef Builders through Time
Peg Yacobucci, Bowling Green State University-Main Campus
Students will use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to explore the history of reef-building animals through time. They will document diversity and extinction patterns through time for seven reef-building marine ...

Data Analysis Activity Using MATLAB
Michael Ray, California State University-Sacramento
In this activity students will develop a model of air resistance, then perform an experiment using coffee filters, rulers and a stopwatch to test it. They will collect the data, then analyze it and produce a high ...

Molecular Parasitology
Swati Agrawal, University of Mary Washington
In Spring 2021, we piloted a mini-CURE where student groups from University of Mary Washington and Georgia State University collaboratively completed research projects as part of a research-intensive course on Molecular Parasitology. The benefits of this approach were immediately obvious as students interacted across institutions, learned from each other's disciplinary expertise while informing their own research with data collected by their collaborators.

Introduction to MATLAB for Oceanographic Data
Anna Pfeiffer-Herbert, Stockton University
This activity introduces students to loading and plotting data in MATLAB. Students explore scalar and vector time series and profile data commonly used in the field of Oceanography using data sets from publicly ...

Exploring Spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students work with a large set of earthquake data, examine types of charts available in Excel, and use a spreadsheet to ...

Solving the 1D Schrodinger Equation
Morgan Hawker, California State University-Fresno
In this activity, students will explore 1-dimensional solutions to the time-independent Schrodinger equation. Students will utilize a provided MATLAB live script to determine exact energy values for two different ...

Lesson 3: The Value of a Water Footprint (High School)
Kai Olson-Sawyer, GRACE Communications Foundation
Session 1 of this lesson begins with a quick activity to get students thinking about their direct and virtual water use. It introduces a few new ideas for virtual water use that may surprise students, including the ...

Getting started with Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry
Beth Pratt-Sitaula, EarthScope Consortium
Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry method uses overlapping images to create a 3D point cloud of an object or landscape. It can be applied to everything from fault scarps to landslides to topography. This ...

Volcano Monitoring with GPS: Westdahl Volcano Alaska
Maite Agopian, EarthScope; Beth Pratt-Sitaula, EarthScope Consortium
Learners use graphs of GPS position data to determine how the shape of Westdahl Volcano, Alaska is changing. If the flanks of a volcano swell or recede, it is a potential indication of magma movement and changing ...

Exploring Tectonic Motions with GPS
Shelley Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Using a map showing the horizontal velocities of GPS stations in the Plate Boundary Observatory and other GPS networks in Alaska and Western United States, students are able to describe the motions in different regions by interpreting the vectors resulting from long-term high-precision Global Positioning System (GPS) data. Show more information on NGSS alignment Hide NGSS ALIGNMENT Disciplinary Core Ideas History of Earth: HS-ESS1-5 Earth' Systems: MS-ESS2-2 Earth and Human Activity: MS-ESS3-2, HS-ESS3-1 Science and Engineering Practices 4. Analyzing and Interpreting Data 5. Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking 6. Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions Crosscutting Concepts 4. Systems and System Models 7. Stability and Change

Geoethics Case Study: The Keystone Pipeline--Energy, Jobs or Environment?
Dave Mogk, Montana State University-Bozeman
David Mogk and Andrew Thorson, Montana State University-Bozeman Summary The Keystone Pipeline is a complex project that raises important environmental, economic, and international policy issues. Tar sands from ...

Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics
Shelley Olds, EarthScope Consortium
This lesson teaches middle and high school students to understand the architecture of GPS—from satellites to research quality stations on the ground. This is done with physical models and a presentation. Then students learn to interpret data for the station's position through time ("time series plots"). Students represent time series data as velocity vectors and add the vectors to create a total horizontal velocity vector. They apply their skills to discover that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is rifting Iceland. They cement and expand their understanding of GPS data with an abstraction using cars and maps. Finally, they explore GPS vectors in the context of global plate tectonics.

Climate Change Effects on Lake Temperatures
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Climate change is modifying the thermal structure of lakes around the globe. Because it is difficult to predict how lakes will respond to the many different aspects of climate change (e.g., altered temperature, ...

Measuring the Inclination and Declination of the Earth's magnetic field with a smartphone
Avradip Ghosh, University of Houston-University Park
The poles of the Earth's magnetic field are not precisely aligned with the geographic north and south poles and, in fact, vary continuously. This activity introduces to students the Earth's magnetic ...

Rocks are Elastic!! Seeing is Believing
IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology)
This activity helps learners see the elastic properties of rocks by actually bending marble. How rocks respond to stress is a fundamental concept, critical to forming explanatory models in the geosciences (e.g., elastic rebound theory). Whereas learners are likely to have lots of experience with rocks, few will have directly experienced them behaving elastically. As a result of this "missed experience", most learners conceptualize rocks as rigid solids; a concept which generally serves students well in everyday life but impedes learning about particular geologic concepts.

Grand Canyon Cross Section Lab
Doug Lombardi, University of Maryland-College Park
× Students examine a geologic map of the Grand Canyon and two imaginary vertical cores through canyon stratigraphy. They use these data to construct a cross-section across the canyon and to answer questions ...

Working with Climate Change Data
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students use spreadsheets to create graphs data related to climate change: sunspots, insolation, carbon dioxide, and global ...

Base Isolation for Earthquake Resistance
Larry Braile (Purdue University) and TOTLE (Teachers on the Leading Edge) Project
This document includes two activities related to earthquake base isolation. Learners explore earthquake hazards and damage to buildings by constructing model buildings and subjecting the buildings to ground vibration (shaking similar to earthquake vibrations) on a small shake table. Base isolation a powerful tool for earthquake engineering. It is meant to enable a building to survive a potentially devastating seismic impact through a proper initial design or subsequent modifications. The buildings are constructed by two- or three-person learner teams.

Climate Change Module
This module was initially developed by O'Reilly, C.M., D.C. Richardson, and R.D. Gougis. 15 March 2017. Project EDDIE: Climate Change. Project EDDIE Module 8, Version 1.
Scientists agree that the climate is changing and that human activities are a primary cause for this change through increased emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. There have been times in ...

Assessing the Risk of Invasive Species Using Community Science Data
Matthew Heard, Belmont University
This module introduces students who are already familiar with GIS to doing comparative analyses with large-scale community science (often called citizen science) data sets. Students will explore how we can use ...