Most introductory geology students have experience identifying hand-sized rock samples in the lab, but never get to see bigger rock exposures outside the classroom. This activity includes takes students to downtown Seattle, where they observe the geology of the building stones within a few blocks of campus. The exercise exposes students to large, polished rock samples in an area where they are familiar, but might not have noticed the rocks before. For students on urban campuses or online geology classes with a limited amount of lab time this is a useful activity.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Climate change and environmental justice class activity. Designed for students to understand the justice issues surrounding climate change on a global and domestic level.

In this activity, students work in groups to put a set of cartoon cards in order, much in the way that we might assemble a geologic history. The primary goal of the activity is to explore the nature of science in general and the nature of geoscience or historical science specifically, without requiring any content knowledge.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This activity is designed as both an introduction to GIS and an exploration of topographic steady-state. Students analyze DEMs from Taiwan to extract topographic profiles across the range. They reconstruct a series of datasets presented in Stolar et al., (2007), showing the progression of the range to steady-state as a space-for-time substitution from south to north. Students are expected to relate their observations from the topography to theoretical concepts discussed in class including accretion and uplift, steady-state, and critical wedge theory.

An extension involves developing a simple numerical model in Excel of a mountain range as it progresses to topographic steady-state landscape, allowing students to investigate the rise of a mountain range to steady-state both from Taiwan data and from their numerical model.

This activity uses a think-pair-share approach to helping students connect observations about disparate changes in the market for skilled/unskilled labor to long-run trends in wage inequality.

This lab is designed to be a highly interactive lab session for a petrology course, where instructors provide a minimal level of essential background and then the entire group works together to explore mineral chemistry. In using a new piece of technology, students can "learn as they go." The point is not to understand every aspect of how an instrument works or to become proficient users, but rather to use the visual impact of the output to catch their interest and advance their analytical skills in the process. I find this lab works very well as a bridge between two semesters of a typical Mineralogy-Petrology sequence. Having completed crystallography, systematic mineralogy and optical, students find this a welcome change of pace and it helps them to start thinking about how mineral associations form the basis of petrology. It is also a great reinforcement and integration of mineralogy and chemistry, allowing you to leap off into crystal chemistry more deeply.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

In this interactive lecture, students watch a video clip from The Colbert Report that addresses pollution externalities. Students graph the market and use the write-pair-share technique, then brainstorm ways to move the market to the socially efficient equilibrium.

Students read an article titled "The Sixth Extinction" by Niles Eldredge on past mass extinctions and the current rate of loss of species. The instructor can choose from a suite of activities which include having students respond to discussion and extension questions about the article, write an essay on the article defending Eldredge's view, create an extinction chart, and debate the actions of stakeholders faced with an endangered species vs. human water needs scenario. Students will need to research additional references to complete the activities and be prepared to defend their positions.

These are two crossword puzzles that I hand out for extra credit, one for the igneous half of the course and the other for the metamorphic half. The puzzles reinforce concepts, vocabulary, and mineral formulae that we have gone over in class and labs. The students *love* them, and usually end up working on them in groups. Both puzzles were created using the Discovery Channel Puzzlemaker: http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

students are engaged in reflecting on whether plate tectonics is a general theory of planetary organization and evolution. Students use topographic, magnetic, spectral, and other data from NASA and ESA missions to determine whether "Earth-style" plate tectonics is functional on planets and moons elsewhere in the solar system. Students are engaged in a data-rich environment from which they must formulate and test multiple hypotheses. Throughout the process, students are engaged in small groups to identify what they need to learn to answer their questions, what resources are available to them, how best to report their findings, and how they can assess the amount of learning that is taking place.

This lab activity is designed to have students use their knowledge of balancing and identifying chemcial reactions and apply it in a fun and interesting way!

Students are introduced to sedimentary rocks through field observations and measurements of sediments in different environments. This allows them to proceed from processes to products and engages them through field work in the local area.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This activity is an extension of the FOSS Variables Lifeboat investigation. Students choose a lifeboats variable to investigate, write up an experiment based on the variable to be tested, test the variable, and create a lifeboats investigation poster to share their results.

The first problem in this assignment is the culmination of the unit on energy balance and greenhouse gases. The students have already calculated blackbody temperatures as a function of albedo, sun's luminosity and distance from sun. They have also already calculated the magnitude of the greenhouse effect (optical thickness) of the modern atmosphere. In this first problem, the students apply these same calculations to the Faint Young Sun hypothesis and infer what can account for the geological evidence for liquid water on earth since 4.3 Ga. The second problem follows an introductory lecture on radiometric decay and radiometric dating. The students have seen the decay equation and learned what are decay constants and stable versus radioactive isotopes. In this problem, the students apply these concepts to radiocarbon.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

The Fair model web site includes a freely available United States macroeconomic econometric model and a multicounty econometric model. The models run on the Windows OS. Instructors can use the models to teach forecasting, run policy experiments, and evaluate historical episodes of macroeconomic behavior. The web site includes extensive documentation for both models. The simulation is for upper-division economics courses in macroeconomics or econometrics. The principle developer is Ray Fair at Yale University.

This activity teaches students how to formulate research questions and perform empirical analysis. Students analyse family budgets from late 19th-century industrial workers.

In this activity, students use theoretical knowledge about family stress theories to analyze family vignettes and make predictions about the level of risk or resilience each family might have should a natural disaster occur. To increase resilience, risk communication strategies are discussed.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This lesson is a presentation of famous scientist throughout history where the students will learn and take notes about the contributions and discoveries made in science.

Average inquiry level: Guided inquiry
This inquiry-based lab explores the fossil record by having students use various characteristics of fossils to devise a classification scheme and eventually apply the geologic time scale and geographic locations of the fossils. In Part 1, students are given household or classroom-based items to sort into groups for developing their own classification scheme. Part 2 repeats a similar path to a classification scheme of known fossils. In Part 3, the students take their knowledge of classifications schemes to infer the geologic time period and geographic extent of some fantastic prehistoric beasts of the fossil record.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

"Father Christmas" by The Kinks is used in conjunction with Joel Waldfogel's article "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas" to examine the relative value of cash versus inkind gifts. This can then be extended to an analysis of various public policies.