Free Textbook for College-Level Introductory Geology Courses

Short Description:
This text is provided to you as an Open Educational Resource which you access online. It is designed to give you a comprehensive introduction to Geology at no or very nominal cost. It contains both written and graphic text material, intra-text links to other internal material which may aid in understanding topics and concepts, intra-text links to the appendices and glossary for tables and definitions of words, and extra-text links to videos and web material that clarifies and augments topics and concepts. Contact the authors at edits@opengeology.org with edits, suggestions, or if adopting the book.

Word Count: 153765

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Short Description:
This OPEN textbook was developed as a supplement to Geography 222.3 (GEOG 222), Introduction to Geomatics at the University of Saskatchewan. GEOG 222 is a required course for all Geography majors (B.A., B.Sc., B.A.Sc., and Planning), as well as the gateway geomatics course for a Specialization and Certificate in Geomatics. The content of this reader is a mix of original content (95% to 100% of the text and most of the images) created by Professor Scott Bell while other material comes from attributed sources (attribution is included at the beginning of a chapter or section, or for the note taking guide, on each slide or at the culmination of a series of slides).

Word Count: 26793

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

A Sustainable Development Perspective

Word Count: 17489

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Introduction to landforms using landforms from around the world. Read a fictional book, then present images of landforms from different countries. The provided Google Slides presentation can be copied and edited to suit your class. 

Introduction to seismic theory, measurements and processing of seismic data to final focussed image for geological and/or physical interpretation.This course deals with the most important aspects of reflection seismics. Theory of seismic waves, aspects of data acquisition (seismic sources, receivers and recorders), and of data processing (CMP processing, velocity analysis, stacking, migration) will be dealt with. The course will be supplemented by a practical of 6 afternoons where the students will see the most important data-processing steps via exercises (in Matlab).

This pressbook is a lab manual for an introductory course on physical geology.

This article highlights resources that can be used to supplement lessons on extreme weather, including games and video clips. The article appears in the free, online magazine for K-Grade 5 teachers Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The magazine focuses on the essential principles of climate science.

In this activity students will gain an understanding of how terrain affects a watershed. Students will use maps and Google Earth to "get a picture" of the terrain within their watershed. They will use this knowledge to create an investigation of their stream which will help answer student generated questions about the connection of terrain and water systems.

In this inquiry lab, students design and conduct simple experiments using elodea and Bromothymol blue to determine whether plants consume or release carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis. Students will record their data which will be used to conclude whether carbon dioxide was consumed or released by the elodea.

This experiment uses the heating of water to explore the concepts of density and volume. Students learn about the transfer of heat energy within the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and Earth's interior, and connect this transfer to differences in density, which in turn result in motion. As part of the investigation, students will also become familiar with the Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales.

This article is about the isoperimetric theorem. It states the theorem, explains its history and uses examples and exercises to demonstrate it. The resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

In this video-based activity, students learn that sea level is an average measurement of the height of the ocean, and sea level changes with the seasons and over time. El Niño and La Ninña events are compared, demonstrating that sea height is a function of temperature.Summary background information, data and images supporting the activity are available on the Earth Update data site. To complete the activity, students will need to access the Space Update multimedia collection, which is available for download and purchase for use in the classroom.

In this activity, students organize a set of fossils chronologically and learn to correlate, based on fossil evidence, the stratigraphy of one location with that of an adjacent location. Earth Science Reference Tables are used to identify the epoch of occurrence and the age of each of the fossil specimens. Students will become familiar with the concept of index fossils and understand what makes a good index fossil.

This article describes key aspects of the nature of science by comparing the reactions to a sensational story between scientists and non-scientists. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

This six-day unit provides an in-depth look at the dynamic forces at work on the sea floor. Throughout the unit, students collect their findings in a portfolio. The comprehensive curriculum materials include teacher tools such as individually downloadable readings and detailed daily breakdowns of tasks, a hands-on experiment, three activities about how scientists find deep sea vents and two activities about the thriving ecosystems found in deep sea vents.

ZOOM guest Amy wants to be a meteorologist and volunteers at a weather observatory. In this adapted video segment, she shows us instruments used to predict the weather and describes how air pressure affects weather patterns.

A First Edition Adaptation from UBC's Okanagan Campus, Department of Earth, Environmental & Geographic Sciences

Word Count: 63926

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

In this article, the author shows how school librarians and elementary teachers can help students create science lapbooks. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured on the seven essential principles of the climate sciences.

This example shows how Newton's laws of motion apply to aircraft carriers and introduces the lift equation: the amount of lift depends on the air density, the wind velocity, and the surface area of the wings. The problems stress the importance of units of measure. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientist Mike Garcia draws lava samples at the foot of the active Kilauea volcano to see if it is related to its neighboring volcano, Mauna Loa.