This interactive internet exercise engages students in cooperative library and web research on a controversial topic in science (and ethics), specifically the cloning of extinct forms of life. To debate the many complex issues embedded in this topic, students have to apply knowledge acquired from a variety of sources about dinosaurs, their evolutionary history, diversity, distribution, physiology, ... Full description.

This article describes the use of a model to express the magnitude-frequency relationships of natural hazards. The model consists of a dartboard whose rings can be drawn to represent magnitude, exceedence probability, average recurrence interval, or other statistical information. Students are engaged by "playing" the dart game through conducting a thought experiment, actually throwing at a physical ... Full description.

NOTE: This is a large file, 81.4 mb in size! This article describes the use of an authentic regional planning public workshop activity which was modified and used to introduce the Earth surface portion of an Earth Science lecture course for undergraduate non-science majors. Students applied map-reading skills and learned about the local environment while forming opinions about how the region should ... Full description.

NOTE: This is a large file, 26.6 mb in size! This article advocates the use of a Learner-Centered Environment (LCE) to teach Earth System Science. In this instance, LCE takes the form of a mock environmental summit in which students play the roles of country representatives and participate in activities such as writings, class discussions, presentations and negotiations. Rubrics developed for each ... Full description.

This article presents an idea for a classroom activity that is intended to replace some of the lectures that would ordinarily be necessary in a survey of Earth history over geologic time. Students take the lecturer's place in front of the class and present some of the material to their colleagues. They work in groups on a single era or period. Each student plays the role of an expert (such as an oceanographer) ... Full description.

This article describes an interactive game that can be used in conjunction with traditional laboratory work, group discussions, student presentations, and writing exercises. It provides an enjoyable and motivating dimension to a university seminar/lab course in Historical Geology and Paleontology. A simple spelling-bee-type game evolves over ten weeks into a room-sized board game based on the geologic ... Full description.

The exercises presented in this paper are part of a "minds on" rather than a "hands on" approach. They are intended to complement "hands on" activities and introduce students to another aspect of scientific inquiry. The exercises require students to analyze large sets of real data, to evaluate the data critically, to observe patterns and anomalies, to make inferences and predictions based on the data, ... Full description.

NOTE: This is a large file, 7.4mb in size! This article provides an example of the benefits to students of using web-based resources to investigate global climate change. The investigation takes the form of a computer-based activity in which students collect data from the internet on temperature, concentrations of various gases, and oxygen isotopes. The activity begins by posing the question: "Should ... Full description.