Students will use map views and cross-sectional profiles across the Red Sea to determine plate tectonic processes in the region. Google Earth is a technological tool used to facilitate the investigation.

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Photo of a tree band at Penn State Brandywine, Media, PA

Provenance: Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
The Smithsonian Institution's Global Tree Banding Project is a citizen science program that contributes to research about tree biomass by tracking how trees respond to climate. Students around the globe are monitoring the rate at which their local trees grow and learn how that rate corresponds to Smithsonian research as well as comparing the work to other students worldwide.
But at Penn State Brandywine, we are going beyond the requirements of the Smithsonian project. Instead of only taking two measurements in the spring and two measurements in the fall, undergraduate researchers are taking measurements every two weeks. We started taking measurements of ten trees on campus April 3, 2012, and we will continue until each and every tree outgrows its tree band. As a result, we have a rich database that not only contributes to scientific research but can serve as a foundation for student inquiry-based projects. The data is available for download in Google Spreadsheets for students to examine changes in tree diameter within one or between growing seasons, supplemented with temperature and precipitation data.

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Students are challenged to write a script and record a voicemail that is left 50 years in the future, describing changes that have taken place in the local environment based upon scientifically-accurate information and projections. The exercise allows students to select an issue of personal interest and communicate in a creative format.

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Students are asked to match up lecturers with what day and time they teach, and how many students they have based on clues given from several different perspectives. In the second part of the activity, students are asked to learn more about the historic figures mentioned in the activity by doing reading and web research.

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Students must associate different dinosaur trackways with their locations and the rock formations containing the trackways based on clues given from various points of view.

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students are asked to match up students with their home state, and their states with the area and percentage of area of surface water that they contain, as well as where each of the states rank nationally in terms of water area.

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Students are asked to match up several unique fossils with the site and location where it was found and it's geologic age.

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Students are asked to match up five top Museums with 2 fossils that they have on display based on clues presented from various points of view.

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Students are asked to convert measurements in cubic feet per hour (cfh) to cubic feet per second (cfs) and then match up the names of the researchers measuring the flows at the river station with the correct flow rate and the year in which it was taken. There is also a second part in which students must graph the different flow rates with time and then answer questions by interpreting the information in the graph.

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In this two-part example, students are given clues about properties about the terrestrial and Jovian planets respectively and asked to match up the planet with the correct equatorial radius, mean orbital velocity, and period of rotation.

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Students are asked to match up the five largest mass extinction events with their relative dates, approximate duration, and severity (percentage of species that became extinct) based on clues given from various perspectives.

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Students are asked to match up each of the Stooges with their favorite group and species of dinosaur based on clues given from different perspectives.

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students are asked to resolve how many days each of 5 volcanologists spent at a volcano and what day they started for the volcano. There is also a second part where students are asked to do some additional research about volcanoes on the web.

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Through a discussion board, students comment and respond to paper topics on the human impacts on sharks.

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1) What are some of the biological effects of dam removal (good and bad)?

2) What are some of the more pressing/compelling reasons to remove a dam? Explain.

3) The Stanley and Doyle (2003) article states that, "dam removal cannot be avoided." Hypothetically, let's say you are placed on a committee to oversee the removal of the Aswan High Dam, since Doyle et al. (2003) states that, "the functional lifespan of most dams is approximately 60-120 years." What scientific studies would you conduct before/during/after dam removal? Why?

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1) What do you think it means for a fossil resource to be "abused"?

2) What's the issue with fossil hunting on federal land (such as National Parks)? Explain what your interpretation of the conflict is.

3) Do you think commercial dealers and scientists can work together? How? Is this a good idea?

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1) How are zircons formed?

2) Which of the following statements describes relative geologic dating?
a) the Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct at the same time
b) dinosaurs came later than horseshoe crabs
c) the southern Atlantic Ocean began forming 20 million years after Pangaea split apart
d) the oldest piece of Atlantic Ocean crust is ~135 million years old, while the oldest piece of Pacific Ocean crust is ~165 million years old
e) orangutans separated from the hominid lineage 14 million years ago

3) Which of the following statements describes absolute geologic dating?
a) the Triceratops evolved after the Stegosaurus
b) the dinosaurs died out 60 million years before humans split from chimps
c) gorillas evolved before chimps
d) the northern Atlantic Ocean formed before the southern Atlantic Ocean
e) the Ice Ages ended 10,000 years ago, before the Cambrian Explosion ~545 million years ago

4) Why are zircons the most reliable timepiece we have for looking at Earth's early history?

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Storytelling is an effective way to communicate what is happening along our local-to-international coastal zones. However, most of the stories students hear are ones of "doom and gloom." Therefore, students are assigned to take storytelling to the next step and write/record energizing narratives that capture examples of adaptation and resilience along the coast.

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This electronic peer review exercise has students discuss the major volcanic hazards and risks to humans.

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A semester-long audio recording project, defined by the needs of a community organization, engages students in not only learning new content but sharing their new knowledge beyond classroom walls (and beyond the professor). This assignment, focusing on "engaged digital scholarship," challenges students to increase their information literacy and use of audio to effectively communicate scientific information for a general audience. This project has been embedded in several different introductory-level Earth science courses for non-science majors, with the resulting podcasts being shared with varied community groups. The example presented here focuses on students in a "Water: Science and Society" course generating podcasts that respond to specific content questions posed by Pennsylvania K-12 teachers, with the resulting podcasts posted on the website for the Pennsylvania Earth Science Teachers Association (PAESTA).

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