Increasingly volatile climate and weather; vulnerable drinking water supplies; shrinking wildlife habitats; widespread deforestation due to energy and food production. These are examples of environmental challenges that are of critical importance in our world, both in far away places and close to home, and are particularly well suited to inquiry using geographic information systems. In GEOG 487 you will explore topics like these and learn about data and spatial analysis techniques commonly employed in environmental applications. After taking this course you will be equipped with relevant analytical approaches and tools that you can readily apply to your own environmental contexts.

A great variety of processes affect the surface of the Earth. Topics to be covered are production and movement of surficial materials; soils and soil erosion; precipitation; streams and lakes; groundwater flow; glaciers and their deposits. The course combines aspects of geology, climatology, hydrology, and soil science to present a coherent introduction to the surface of the Earth, with emphasis on both fundamental concepts and practical applications, as a basis for understanding and intelligent management of the Earth’s physical and chemical environment.

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.

Students learn about fossils what they are, how they are formed, and why scientists and engineers care about them.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotic resistance is a global threat to public health, causing an estimated 700,000 deaths each year. Soil is an important reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), but the potential risk of ARGs in different ecosystems and the effect of land use changes are unknown. In a recent study, researchers investigated ARG types and amounts in three native soil ecosystems: Alaskan tundra, US Midwestern prairie, and Amazon Rainforest. They found high ARG diversity and abundance in all three ecosystems. A total of 10 regulatory and 55 non-regulatory ARGs were identified that were shared by all 26 metagenomes in the three ecosystems. No significant differences were observed in ARG diversity or abundance between native prairie and agricultural soil, while conversion of Amazon rainforest to pasture increased ARG abundance..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"As global warming persists, it’s becoming clear that even the smallest forms of life need protection, including in the cold deserts of Antarctica. But scientists know very little about the microbes that make their home in Antarctic soil, leaving the picture of biodiversity and ecological change in this region incomplete. Now, researchers from Australia are filling in the blanks. They’ve conducted the first-ever microbial biodiversity report for two Antarctic regions: the extremely dry Vestfold Hills and the Windmill Islands. Bacterial communities in both areas were dominated by microbes of the metabolically and physiologically diverse phylum Actinobacteria, but the Vestfold Hills showed a higher prevalence of members of the Bacteriodetes phylum, likely due to the saltier soils found in this region. Overall, the observed diversity of community members suggests that microbes have found a way to share their environment equitably..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

The Future of Food is an introductory-level science course that emphasizes the challenges facing food systems in the 21st century, and issues of sustainability for agriculture and other food production activities, as well as the challenges posed by food insecurity and modern diets to human health and well-being. Topics covered include introduction to the coupled-system perspective, historical development of food systems, socioeconomic aspects of the food system, interaction of the food system with the Earth's environment including soil, water, biota and climate, and the future of the food system considering potential changes such as in climate, urbanization, and demography.

To understand how fossils are formed, students model the process of fossilization by making fossils using small toy figures and melted chocolate. They extend their knowledge to the many ways that engineers aid in the study of fossils, including the development of tools and technologies for determining the physical and chemical properties of fossilized organisms, and how those properties tell a story of our changing world.

In this sixth grade science lesson, students will learn the main components of soil and discuss how soil is created in nature as well as how we can conserve it in the garden.

In this 8th grade science lesson, students test the pH levels of soil from three different sites in the garden to determine the level of acidity in the garden soil.

Students explore the effects of regional geology on bridge foundation, including the variety of soil conditions found beneath foundations. They learn about shallow and deep foundations, as well as the concepts of bearing pressure and settlement.

Student teams locate a contaminant spill in a hypothetical site by measuring the pH of soil samples. Then they predict the direction of groundwater flow using mathematical modeling. They also use the engineering design process to come up with alternative treatments for the contaminated water.

This activity is an indoor lab investigation where students compare and contrast different growing environments for a lima bean seed and discover the optimal conditions needed for growth.

Students learn about geotechnical engineers and their use of physical properties, such as soil density, to determine the ability of various soils to offer support to foundations. In an associated activity, students determine the bulk densities of soil samples, and assess their suitability to support foundations.

Students determine the mass and volume of soil samples and calculate the density of the soils. They use this information to determine the suitability of the soil to support a building foundation.

This activity is a investigation where students observe soil and rocks, record their similarities and differences, interpret their findings, and are guided to develop a new investigable question.

Students conduct experiments to determine what environmental factors favor decomposition by soil microbes. They use chunks of carrots for the materials to be decomposed, and their experiments are carried out in plastic bags filled with dirt. Every few days students remove the carrots from the dirt and weigh them. Depending on the experimental conditions, after a few weeks most of the carrots have decomposed completely.

In this activity, students use Google Earth and team up with fictional students in Chersky, Russia to investigate possible causes of thawing permafrost in Siberia and other Arctic regions. Students explore the nature of permafrost and what the effects of thawing permafrost mean both locally and globally. Next, students use a spreadsheet to explore soil temperature data from permafrost boreholes and surface air temperature datasets from in and around the Chersky region for a 50-year time span.

Just like manure, compost can improve your garden soil and make your vegetables or flowers grow stronger and healthier. Here’s how you and your family can make some compost.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Soil and sediment microorganisms are remarkably diverse and are critical for ecosystem health. However, they are underrepresented in public databases, and assembling new metaproteomic datasets is challenging, which makes it difficult to characterize the microorganisms in specific soil samples. To increase the outputs of soil metaproteomic studies, a recent study compared various database construction strategies. Search strategies using either sample-specific metagenomic databases or public databases produced comparable peptide-spectrum matches for a floodplain soil core. However, a two-step cascaded search combining both types of databases led to greater peptide-spectrum matching. The combination strategy also improved functional annotation of the peptides, and the resulting metaproteome (MetaP) annotations correlated well with the metagenome (MetaG) annotations..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.