This project involves students in substantial community-based ethnographic research. Working cooperatively together as a consultancy team, the students learn to use ethnographic and other research methods. They also learn to empower and give voice to various stakeholders and to assemble and synthesize data for a formal report.

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Students explore material properties in hands-on and visually evident ways via the Archimedes' principle. First, they design and conduct an experiment to calculate densities of various materials and present their findings to the class. Using this information, they identify an unknown material based on its density. Then, groups explore buoyant forces. They measure displacement needed for various materials to float on water and construct the equation for buoyancy. Using this equation, they calculate the numerical solution for a boat hull using given design parameters.

This activity leads to understanding common landslide hazards in the area and how they relate to weather patterns and/or local geology.

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An in-class jigsaw activity, in which students play the role of investigators consulting on behalf of an industrial client seeking an appropriate location to site a new facility to handle environmentally-damaging materials, allows students to interactively tie together key aspects of decision-making (e.g. hazardous Earth processes, prevention/mitigation strategies, sustainability, and the incorporation of multiple types of data to solve complex problems). This activity was designed to be completed within one ~75 minute class meeting, although aspects of this activity can easily be modified to accommodate shorter class periods. In small groups, students examine one of five possible proposed sites for the facility, evaluating it based on its described geologic, economic, and/or social criteria. Students are then scrambled into new, larger groups, in which representatives of all five proposed sites report their findings, and then the sites are collectively ranked in order of preference. Rankings between the larger groups are compared and discussed as a class, including topics such as a comparison of criteria and overall rankings, descriptions of most beneficial and most needed data, and comparison of the activity to "real-life" scenarios.

Students use a series of maps and natural hazard data to evaluate the risk to a building structure of their choice in the state of California. For each hazard, students rate the potential risk in two dimensions: (1) Probability - probability that a hazardous event "may" occur, and (2) Severity of Impact - the size of the impact in terms of cost and impact on human health.

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This is a semester-long jigsaw project in which students work in teams to explore the effects of energy resource development on local water resources, economics, and society. Students are presented with a contemporary energy resource development issue being debated in their community. They research the water, geological, economic, and social impact of the project, and then either defend or support the development proposal.

This module introduces students to the fundamental principles and uses of electrical resistivity, with a focus on an environmental application. Students explore the characteristics and environmental setting of Harrier Meadow, a saltmarsh just outside of New York City. They investigate the relationship between electrical resistivity and physical properties of the soil in the marsh. Students also discover how variations in survey configuration parameters control investigation depth (how far into the ground the signals sense) and spatial resolution (what size objects can be detected). Finally, students learn about and then perform geophysical inversion, which is the process of estimating the geophysical properties of the subsurface from geophysical observations. In the final unit of the module, students evaluate the extent to which the geophysical dataset and direct physical measurements support the hypothesis, introduced in Unit 1, accounting for the distribution of Pickleweed in Harrier Meadow.
This module is intended to require approximately 2-3 weeks of class time. Teaching material includes PowerPoints that may be used in lectures or provided for self-guided learning, exercises, and handouts that ask students to synthesize what they learn from the exercises. In addition, multiple choice and short answer questions can be given to students as homework, on quizzes, or on exams.

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In this in-class exercise, students compare several lines of evidence that support the ideas of continental drift and plate tectonics. Before the class meeting, each student is given a preparation assignment in which he/she studies one "continental drift" and one "ocean floor data" map. In class, students divide into teams of 3, with each team member having prepared different specialties. They discuss their respective maps and look for spatial patterns among the data.

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In this activity, students learn about the pros and cons of co-firing woody biomass fuels with coal to produce electricity.

This assignment is best presented in two lab periods to represent the "before" and "after" scenarios of land use and their impact on hydrology. It requires documentation in map and/or airphoto form of land use in a specific watershed at two times: historical and modern. Historical USGS topographic maps from the 19th century were used in this case, along with digital orthophotos for the modern-day scenario. Some means of quantifying subareas within the watershed is also needed, either using software (ArcGIS) or transparent overlays and boxcounting from a translucent grid would work.
For each of the sets of documentation: historical and modern, the students follow the USDA-NRCS TR55 empirical procedure to estimate event runoff depths and peak estimated discharge from the watershed. An area-weighted curve number (CN) is calculated based on tabulated categories of land use. Some judgment is involved in adapting the tabulated land use categories to the specific watershed used, and selecting an appropriate statistical average rainfall event to use. The sum of Darcy's Law calculations of discharge along streamtubes to a surface stream or estuary provides a groundwater discharge value over time for comparison. Each of these parts of the activity provides opportunities for the instructor to discuss uncertainties and sources of error.
Note that although software allowing TR-55 analysis exists, it is simpler and more instructive to have students use the paper method and forms in the manual.

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This activity is an investigation regarding evaporation and the factors that affect it.

This is a hands-on lab activity about evaporation. Learners will conduct experiments to observe the process of evaporation. They will then describe the process of evaporation, and the general water cycle, through discussion and pictures. Background information, common preconceptions, a glossary and more is included. This activity is part of the Aquarius Hands-on Laboratory Activities.

Explore the concept of evaporative cooling through a hands-on experiment. Use a wet cloth and fan to model an air-conditioner and use temperature and relative humidity sensors to collect data. Then digitally plot the data using graphs in the activity. In an optional extension, make your own modifications to improve the cooler's efficiency.

In this NASA video, scientists describe how the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment will sample and track the Sun's ultraviolet irradiance, providing a detailed time sequence of extreme ultraviolet output -- data that can provide advance warning for potentially disruptive energy bursts.

In this adapted video segment, ZOOM guest Tommy takes us on a tour of the Florida Everglades. He describes what makes a wetland biome unique, including the soil, precipitation, and biodiversity.

This activity provides an opportunity for students to examine the evidence that supports climate change and engage in a classroom discussion and self-reflection on that experience and empower them to consider their own actions and how they can make changes in their life practices

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This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the story of two scientists who inadvertently discovered microwave radiation that is now believed to be heat left over from the Big Bang.

In this activity, students make a model sea floor sediment core using two types of buttons to represent fossil diatoms. They then compare the numbers of diatom fossils in the sediment at different depths to determine whether the seas were free of ice while the diatoms were alive.

In the first video segment, we analyze the population dynamics for a test-tube of cells that affect each others' likelihoods of replication when they collide. The particular example we use is a prisoner's dilemma, which has the almost paradoxical property that survival of the relatively most fit leads overall fitness to decrease. In the second video segment, we suggest that the population dynamics from the first segment can be related to an analysis that uses payoff matrices found in traditional game theory.

In this online activity, learners discover how random variation influences biological evolution. Biological evolution is often thought of as a process by which adaptation is generated through selection.Œć While it is recognized that random variation underlies the process, emphasis is usually placed on selection and resulting adaptation, leaving a sense that it is selection that drives evolution.Œć This simulation highlights the creative role of random variation, offering a somewhat different perspective: that of evolution as open-ended exploration driven by randomness and constrained by selection, with adaptation as a dynamic, transient consequence rather than an objective.