Most students are familiar with the use of antibiotics and antibacterial products; most have heard in various contexts about the problem of bacterial populations becoming resistant to antibiotics over time.
We used this example, relevant to everyday life, to guide students to uncover the complexity of the underlying biological mechanism, and to "see" how the evolution principles they have learned are interconnected and apply to a specific case.

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In this three-part exercise, students study hand samples and thin sections of light-colored igneous minerals and related mineral species.

Part one - Box of Rocks: Students examine a tray of minerals and record their physical properties, composition, and habit. They note chemical and physical similarities and differences and why there are several varieties of minerals in each group.
Part two - Definitions: Define a list of terms relevent to the lab.
Part three - Minerals in Thin Section: Observe minerals in thin section and answer questions about them.

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For this psychology project, students in small groups will design and execute a study on helping behavior and then analyze and interpret the results.

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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In this inquiry based geologic field lab students will be estimating and measuring stream flow. Students will also map out a full scale live topography map of a dry streambed to help them estimate flow discharge. Students will use their journals to record their hypothesis, lab report questions, graphed data and evidence to backs up their observations.

Context Rich Problem using the concepts of excise tax incidence, elasticity of demand, and elasticity of supply. Students must determine which information is appropriate and which is extraneous to the problem.

In this nine-part exercise, students download NOAA high resolution bathy/topo DEMs and TIGER census data to predict the location of shorelines, the extent of inundation, and the number of people affected by sea level rise as a result of global warming and tsunami in various parts of the coastal US; extensions include developing a Map Book report with data driven pages and locating Pleistocene land bridges. You might also be interested in our Full GIS course with links to all assignments.

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Students use an EPA data set of Nevada mines to evaluate proximity of mine sites to streams to choose priority water sampling sites to evaluate for possible contamination. Students export data to Google Earth to use satellite imagery to narrow the priority sites further. You might also be interested in our Full GIS course with links to all assignments.

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In this exercise, students process LiDAR data for the Hamilton College campus area to determine accurate elevations of wellheads of sampling wells on campus. Students use both GPS readings and orthophotos to determine wellhead locations and combine those with water levels, casing heights, and wellhead elevations to interpolate a groundwater surface under the campus and portray the groundwater in ArcScene. They also learn how to use Model Builder. You might also be interested in our Full GIS course with links to all assignments. You might also be interested in our webinar for the NYS GIS Association on A Simple Example of Working with LiDAR using ArcGIS and 3D Analyst.

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Using the question of how exercise and sporting events might be affected by climate, students are led to the basic questions of what causes climate change, how our climate might change, and what affect that might have on athletes and anyone undertaking strenuous exercise.

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Students do background reading on the atmosphere (see URLs below). The questions in this activity are divided up into atmospheric structure, stratospheric ozone, and acid rain. This activity helps students to understand the basic structure of the atmosphere as well as ozone and acid rain problems.

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This assignment is intended to have students use the map reading skills they have learned in previous labs and their understanding of the lower crust and upper mantle derived from classroom lectures and demonstrations to develop a three-dimensional picture the Southern Canadian Cordillera. I try to incorporate the notion of temporal change by asking students to describe the region at different times in the past and to speculate what the region would look like if certain tectonic events happened in the future.

Key words: tectonics, Cordillera,subduction, fold thrust belts

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This is a series of 5 assignments I assign outside of class time, with the purpose of getting students to explore the literature resources that are available for mineralogy. The inspiration for the exercises comes from my exasperation with the repeated questions: "Why do we have to know so many minerals?" and "What about these minerals do we have to know?" Rather than saying "Everything that is important," I hope to show students that what they need to know depends on what questions they hope to answer, and that mineralogy developed in historical context, parallel with other sciences.

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This module consists of a laboratory exercise and related homework problems on geochemical kinetics of mineral-solution reactions for undergraduate mineralogy. Students measure the grain sizes of equant halite crystals, and the time for complete dissolution of each grain. From these data, students retrieve a rate law, from several possible. Additional homework problems allow various chemical and physical transport processes in mineral-fluid systems to be evaluated.

The lab and homework illustrate several basic principles of chemical kinetics directly relevant to geology, including rate laws of reactions, diffusion, advective transport, and the relationship between rate-limiting mechanisms and crystal-surface morphology.

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Students read a short paper from the scientific literature on a narrowly focused mineralogical topic. Reading is guided by a 1-page set of questions and tasks, arranged in sequence with the paper, that make students look at the details of data, arguments, and conclusions. The tangible result is properly answered questions and typically some graphs, but the student gains a less tangible improved understanding of how to read scientific papers in general and an improved understanding of that particular paper in particular.

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Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module. Students use field data from rivers to understand how river discharge is calculated.

This lab activity leads students to a better understanding of exo-endo- thermic processes. It also reinforces the necessity for proper lab safety equipment and disposal techniques.

1. Instructor identifies an appropriate number of key dates in the Precambrian to investigate.
2. Students break into groups (method to be determined by instructor) and each group will be assigned a particular time in the Precambrian (one author likes to have groups draw assignments out of hat!).
3. Students investigate their time period using appropriate source materials (we suggest the class notes, textbook and perhaps supplementary materials identified in the form of popular articles (e.g., Scientific American, Smithsonian, National Geographic, etc.) or websites.
Questions

Using your prior knowledge of your time period, what scientific equipment might you want to take with you?
What will you experience on your time travels?
Is there a place to land?
What is the temperature?
Can you breathe the atmosphere?
Do you need a life support system?
What is the atmosphere composed of?
Is there any water? What is its phase? Can you drink it?
Do you see any life, or evidence of its presence? How would you recognize the life?
What life do you expect to observe or not observe, and why?
What questions were you able to answer with your trip?
What questions were you unable to answer?
What aspects of the environment at this time most surprised or stuck you?

4. Group presentation
a) Create a very simple PowerPoint presentation (10 minutes) for the class.
b) Each group member must present part of the information.

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This is a field investigation where students experience Newton's 3rd law of motion.

The Externalities Game is a non-cooperative game that teaches students about the concept of environmental externalities and allows them to directly experience the moral dimensions of collective action problems. It has been particularly effective for teaching students about the moral aspects of the climate change. Grades are used to create the tension between earning individual grade points at the expense of group benefit. This is part of a research project funded by the National Science Foundation.

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