Where do labs come from?

I have lab on Tuesday & Thursday this semester (same lab, just half the physical students have lab on Tues & the other 1/2 on Thurs). As I was putting out lab & taking pictures of the samples for my own documentation, I contemplated the fact that of the 13 labs I have scheduled for this semester, I only designed one from the ground up. Let me give you the chart & where they were originally from:

Lab 1	Rock Stories	Gustavus lab manual
Lab 2	Scientific method	Kim Hannula
Lab 3	Minerals I	Gustavus lab manual
Lab 4	Minerals II	Gustavus lab manual
Lab 5	Rocks I	Gustavus lab manual
Lab 6	Rocks II	Gustavus lab manual
Lab 7	Forest River Park	Rory McFadden
Lab 8	Topographic maps	Gustavus lab manual
Lab 9	locating epicenters	Virtual Earthquake
Lab 10	Structural geology	Me!
Lab 11	Fossils	still looking for a good one to use…
Lab 12	Groundwater	currently use one found on internet, but we just got “ant farms” that I want to try and use
Lab 13	Stream table	also something I want to add this semester cause we have the resources…

As you can see, I lean strong on the Gustavus material for the rocks & minerals labs, but that department-created lab manual then goes off and focuses on a three-week sequence that involves field trips & drawing a cross-section of the St. Peter, MN area. I can do one week of field trip at Salem State, but only because we can walk to Forest River Park. That field trip is not going to result in being able to determine the geology of the entire Salem quadrangle, so I needed to go another direction.

(The rocks & mineral labs have tweaks due to the fact that I have a different set of samples available, but on the whole, the lab looks amazingly like what I taught while in MN.)

Kim Hannula replied to a tweet that I posted about a year ago & was kind enough to send me her Scientific Process lab. I modified it a bit (had to choose new buildings to measure the distance between) and changed the order of the questions after a few mutterings from the students, but it would be easily recognizable to Kim.

For the topographic map lab, the basis is the Gustavus lab, but I modified it heavily to have the students looking at local maps of Salem and eastern Massachusetts. Still, the bare bones are there if you hold them next to each other.

Unsurprisingly, I got the Forest River Park lab from another professor at Salem State. He had previously received (& modified it) from a different professor. I added a few of my own “twists” to the lab, but it is fairly close to what Rory runs in his physical class.

Though I use the data & maps from the online Virtual Earthquake site, I do print the seismographs out and have the students do the entire process by hand. Its just fun to see the students trying to remember how to use a compass to draw a circle.

Two semesters ago, I used a lab manual for the structure lab. It was the students’ least favorite lab, so I vowed to revise. This past semester, I came up with an entirely online lab where the students use Visual Geology to answer a sequence of questions and then create their own 3D blocks for the final step. The students enjoyed the lab, though I think I need to modify the questions a bit to get more educational benefit from the assignment…

My office-mate is a paleontologist and has an intro fossil lab that I may try and use this year, but I’m open to suggestions. I started lab a week earlier this semester, so this is a new one on the schedule, but students have asked for fossils in the class.

We have equipment to for a more hands-on Groundwater and Stream lab, so my goal is to develop at least one of the two this spring. Or find someone else who has already done the work and tweak. Suggestions anyone? (the groundwater models are new, but the stream table is ancient and definitely not an Emriver model)

As I look at this list, I realize how blessed I have been to be able to take a bit from here and a bit from there for my physical labs. In contrast, when I think of my mineralogy, petrology & structure labs, they are to a large part either slightly modified from what I had or taught as a grad student. There are a few additions from the SERC workshops I’ve attended, but its not nearly the hodgepodge that physical has become.

So, let me ask anyone else out there who teaches intro geology: what do you use for labs? A hodgepodge? A published lab manual? All labs you created yourself?

(Note: this is a bit self-serving, since I’m still trying to find a few more labs to use!)

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AW #44: Most Important Teacher

Simon at Metageologist is hosting AW #44 this month & the chosen theme is “Most important teacher.”   I have to say, this was an easy choice for me, though as I thought about it a bit more I realized that I really should also give a few “runner-up” acknowledgements.

For me, the title “important teacher” comes into play because that person has influenced not just my knowledge of a particular subject, but has also changed how I address research or teaching or just life in general (or all three).   So, I need to give a few shout-outs per category first:

• most influential on how I live my life: this one goes to someone who was never actually a “teacher” but was instead my Girl Scout leader in high school.   I’m a nerd.   I’m a nerd who was in Girl Scouting all the way through high school eventually earning my Gold Award (equivalent of the Eagle Scout).   I had a variety of leaders over the years, most of whom were mothers of someone in the troop.   But Barb Burri was a single woman who was crazy enough to be the leader of the high school troop in the town I grew up in.   At the time, Barb worked in computers (she’s changed careers since then…), she liked camping, skiing, hiking, cooking, reading, had a wicked sense of humor, and would voluntarily spend Wednesday nights with a group of high schoolers.   I grew up in a family that spent plenty of time outdoors, but here was a woman that would encourage us to try and cook a 35-lb turkey at a town-wide encampment and who was willing to discuss a wide-range of topics I never really wanted to bring up with my parents.   Because of Barb, I’m now the crazy woman with a troop of middle school girls (none of which is mine…), who volunteers my time freely to a wide-range of organizations, and could make the hard decisions about balancing life vs. work without agonizing about it.
• most influencial on my teaching style: this has to go to Jim Brophy at Indiana University, who opened my eyes to ways to teach other than just lecturing (sorry to all of my school & undergrad profs, who probably also tried this — I just didn’t get the message); my 1st semester as a grad student, I worked under Jim on an Earth Materials class for envi studies and education undergrads with a few archeology grad students thrown in for fun and sitting in the back of the class was eye-opening.   Jim used reading reflections that were due before class started, he had interactive questions for the students to discuss in small groups during lecture, and the analogies he used (M&M’s in a bucket for xtal fractionation) stick with me even 10+ years later.   I still teach plate tectonics & the model of the atom the way he did in that class, because he started with the evidence & moved to what current paradigms are while demonstrating the scientific process along the way.   I took several grad classes with Jim during my two years at IU, which were all great, but the most memorable was learning MELTS by starting with the original simple mixing model papers and reading the literature that forms the backbone for this powerhouse of ig pet.   Other people have influenced my teaching style, but none as much as Jim.   Oh, and Jim would also want you to know: a basalt is NOT a basalt is NOT a basalt.
• most influential on my research: Jane Gilotti at UIowa.   (a few people may now start wondering if aliens have taken over my blog, but I’m serious on this one)   Jane has very, very high expectations and pushed me more than anyone else I’ve worked with.   When I took microstructural analysis with Jane my first semester at Iowa, she flat out told me that my work was going to be graded to a higher standard than the masters or undergrads in the class.   My thin section sketches back from that class are covered in red.   But I worked my butt off to get my presentation & paper for that class up to her standards.   I continued to work like crazy to get my talks up to par over the next few years and one of my most treasured compliments was a “well-done” from Jane after I ran the tectonics research group discussion a few years into my PhD.   My writing improved greatly under Jane (though it probably could still be better), which has made writing papers, proposals, and even just short statements for students that much easier.   Its Jane’s high standards that really pushed me and I’m grateful for it.

Ok, so now that I’ve rambled on a bit about the runner’s up, my real choice for “most important teacher” is: Kim Hannula.   (Kim, you could stop reading now…)   I lucked out and was assigned to Kim’s freshman seminar class my first year at Middlebury.   I was the stubborn student who thought she knew exactly what she was going to do & when, but Kim managed to steer me over the next few years, so that somehow I ended up at a metamorphic geologist and not as a planetary scientist (based on jobs available, best decision ever).

Teaching-wise, Kim would always write an outline of the topics that were going to be covered that day on the board, so we had an idea of where we were in the day’s lecture — my outline is a reoccurring slide in powerpoint, but same idea.   Some of my intro labs (and the majority of my structure labs) are either directly taken from Kim or modified to some extent from what I did as an undergrad.

From the research side, I worked with Kim in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont on my undergraduate thesis.   The numbering scheme I use to collect rocks, what my field notebook looks like, how I tend to set up the organization of a paper vs. appendices are all things that I learned during that project from Kim.   And since that project had some pitfalls, it was also from Kim that I learned that what you want to do isn’t always what you’ll end up being able to do, but the alternative might actually be more interesting in the long run.   Good thing I had that knowledge before I tackled my masters rocks or I might still be trying to figure out what was going on in those darn amphibolites.   Once I started advising senior theses, I also tried to bring back into mind Kim’s interaction with me so that I could be that “good” advisor who actually was a help to my advisee.

On the personal side, I learned from Kim not to give up.   (I’ll let Kim explain in her own words.)

In addition to being a great teacher, Kim has also been a wonderful mentor, someone who kicks my butt about not getting things done in a timely fashion, and a person who I rely on for good advice about both teaching and research.   If I can be that kind of teacher for my students, I’ll be happy.

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Geology news from 24. February – 1. March according to my students

What my students discovered for news:

• Mt Marapi in Indonesia is erupting — though, if you follow Erik’s Eruptions blog, you probably also read his summary
• I did not know that Nepal & China don’t agree on the current height measurement of Mt. Everest, but Nepal is seeking international support to definitively say how high the peak is 
• dinosaurs also had to deal with fleas (at least based on recent evidence from China)
• a swarm of earthquakes occurred at the end of February in the Salton Sea region of California
• a 6.8 magnitude earthquake occurred on 26. February in Siberia, though no damage or injuries have been reported
• a 5.9 magnitude earthquake occurred on the same day (26. February) in southern Taiwan and caused minor damage
• several magnitude 2 earthquakes in southwestern Illinois on Monday
• a mudslide in Washington State on Thursday has blocked the rail lines near Everett, which affected freight service to Seattle
• a student found a story about weathering rates of gravestones, which focuses on a study that GSA is sponsoring called the Gravestone Project — my surprise was due to the fact that they actually found something that matched with the chemical vs. physical weathering we were discussing in class last week!
• the Arctic’s old ice is disappearing quicker than young ice according to a new study by NASA
• a new study in the 29. February Nature (behind paywall) suggests that mantle strength will determine when collision between India and Eurasia will end instead of the height of the mountains

Ok, time to grade more exams.   Fun.   Only a few days to India!

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Solar system news from 22. – 28. February according to my students

This is the week right before spring break, so I’ve fallen behind a bit in posting while I was distracted by writing a few exams.   I’m going to India starting on Saturday, so I hopefully can catch up (if not get a bit ahead!) this week.

News stories:

• we started talking about impact craters this week, which led one student to highlighting a NY Daily News article about Asteroid 2011AG5 — the first line reads “Calling Bruce Willis!” to give you a hint as to the slant… (the Discovery News article is less inflammatory)
• Cassini images reveal that Titan may have seasons, which cause cloud fluctuation, as well as day to night temperature differences
• a change in the magnetic field last week in conjunction with the high solar flare activity caused some impressive northern lights (the pictures with the article are well worth clicking through for)
• computer modeling of how the northern lights behave was also featured in Discovery News this week
• discussions about the future of space travel are still cropping up — the most recent from Discovery News
• because we were also discussing volcanoes, one student found an article about a recent Hawaiian eruption of “Pele’s braids” (which I could not find a reference to in my quick & dirty search of my volcano books and reputable internet sites)

(The impact story was popular as was the Titan story–both had multiple summaries.)

I should get the my physical geology’s summary up later today.

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geology news from 17. – 23. February according to my students

(now that I’ve graded the solar system summaries, its time to tackle physical geology)

• in honor of the 200th anniversary on the New Madrid earthquakes, Missouri experienced a 4.0 earthquake on the 21. February — no real damage, by the earthquake was felt in 9 different states
• Kanaga in Alaska is starting to be restless — Erik from the Eruptions blog also addressed Kanaga & Cleveland this week
• activity at Cleveland was also summarized by another student
• Uturuncu reappeared this week — Erik’s got a great interview with one of the lead scientists examining the Bolivian volcano if you missed it last week
• a new study of the 2011 tsunami debris from Japan that will soon reach the shores of the west coast revealed that they do not pose a radioactive risk
• increases in CO2 levels in the ocean could starkly reduce the biodiversity of the ocean
• Wednesday morning saw a swarm of volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii near Kilauea — no report of changed magma activity associated with the earthquakes yet
• heavy rain triggered mudslides & flooding in Washington state on Wednesday 

The most popular article this week was about the earthquake in Missouri, in case you were wondering 🙂

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Solar System news from 15. – 21. February according to my students

Its been a busy week, so I’m a bit late getting this compiled.   I’ll try to get the geology news from Physical done shortly after this is posted.

• a tornado as big as the Earth went careening across the surface of the Sun for over 30 hours at the beginning of February — wow
• NASA released this week an image from Cassini of Rhea & Titan (Saturn’s 2 largest moons) lined up
• Hubble sees evidence for tellurium in several 12 billion year old stars
• residues of the explosion of Eta Carinae has been observed by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network — the explosion was first seen on Earth in the 1837 and recorded by a variety of cultures including aborigines
• new graben have been observed on the Moon that may indicate seismic activity less than 50 Myr old — this one was quite popular both on twitter & by my students
• using precise GPS measurements to test numerical models of the link between earthquakes and plate motions — result could be long-term, not short-term, earthquake forecasting
• Hubble images a new exo-planet that may have a large portion of its mass made up of water & has a thick water-rich atmosphere

 

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Geology news from 10. – 16. February according to my students

(the fire alarm went off at 4.15 & 5.10 this morning, so please excuse weird spelling / grammar mistake — I’ll try to catch them)

What my students selected:

• a 5.6 magnitude earthquake occurred Monday afternoon (13. February) in northern California that was felt, but did not appear to cause any damage
• a Thursday morning earthquake in San Francisco was only a 3.9 (and followed a 3.5 a day earlier)
• a 5.8 earthquake occurred in Costa Rica on Monday — once again no damages reported
• the Paragon company retrieved a number of large diamonds from the Lesotho kimberlite — we talked about minerals last week, which explains why my student was searching through “Mining News” for stories
• because we have to sensationalize everything: “rip in giant slab” caused flood basalts in western US
• Uturuncu (Bolivia) is inflating quickly — if you would like more information on this overly hard to spell volcano (ok, its not Icelandic hard…), Erik from the Eruptions Blog interviewed Dr. Shanaka de Silva, who is one of the geologists researching Uturuncu
• Lake Vostok in Antartica (which one student discussed last week) made a re-appearance this week & the link to Europa’s possible oceans has been emphasized
• Amasia also popped up again this week (I still don’t like the name)
• I thought one of the best finds this week was the story about Mt. Hood’s history of calmer eruptions that was actually non-inflamatory

 

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Geology news from 3. – 9. February according to my students

A bit dated, but here’s the list of what my students found:

• a bit of shifting around in the economic minerals corporation landscape as Richards Bay Minerals (South Africa) is sold to Rio Tinto
• also on the mining front, Nokia develops a policy on conflict minerals — we started minerals last week in class, so these fall in the “extra credit for matching lecture” category
• earthquakes: the 6.9 near Negros (Phillipines) on 6. February,
• the discussion about where the next supercontinent may form in comparison to Pangaea was also in the news this week — are we really going with Amasia as a name?
• geesh, will they ever stop with the eruption fear mongering?  Ubehebe is “ripe” for eruption — which various people muttered about on Twitter, but no one seems to have blogged about
• engineers at Boise State are proposing injecting non-hazardous chemicals into the ground to form bubbles that should reduce the affect of soil liquefaction — extremely useful if it works
• flooding in Australia continues, which is having devastating impacts on farming

My hope is now that exams are over for the moment, I can get back on top of reporting these in a more timely fashion.

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Solar system news #3 from 1. to 7. February according to my students

I’m finding it fascinating to see what my students dig up that relates to my Solar System class — I’m so used to the articles about earthquakes, volcanoes, and flooding, that I’m enjoying the change of pace.

• first up is something for 4th-8th grader teachers: NASA announced the first video from the MoonKAM as part of the Grail mission; eventually students will be allowed to choose locations on the far side of the Moon to take pictures of
• the Juno satellite needed to make a few planned course corrections on its trip to Jupiter
• NASA is looking for “space taxis” — I wonder if they’ll have to have that plexiglas layer between the pilot & the passengers? 🙂
• one of my solar system students did find the study about the new planet in the habitable zone & more than that found a scientifically reasonable article describing the discovery
• article that argues there isn’t enough clay in Martian soils for a long period of water on the surface of Mars
• a new portrait of Titan created from layering several Cassini images
• Lake Vostok, which is located under 2,5 miles of ice in Antarctica, may have been reached by a Russian drilling team — it could have implications for the potential of life on bodies such as Europa, Enceladus (has taken the Russians 14 years to reach the lake!)
• and my favorite: volcanic eruptions of sulfur-rich material from Io may control Jupiter’s auroras instead of solar wind from the Sun

Off to inform my physical class how they did on Monday’s exam (yes, I’m the crazy person who chose to give both my classes exams this week…).   Wailing & gnashing will soon begin.

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Geology news for 27. Jan to 2. Feb according to my physical students

(I lost internet access at the university until today — argh.   Please excuse the delay.)

In addition to my Solar System class, I’m also teaching physical geology this semester.   Those student simply have to find articles describing some form of geological news article that has occurred in the past week:

• earthquakes: 5.2 in Greece on Friday, 27. January; aftershocks continue to rattle Virginia five months later; a 4.3 magnitude earthquake in Nevada was barely noticed on 1. February; the magnitude 7.1 near Vanuatu on 2. February seems to have caused no reported damage; a 3.0 in Cartago, California on 2. February also was noticed by my students
• the 2.4 magnitude event in northern Illinois on Monday resulted in papers trying to find something to talk about & settled for geophysicists using the seismic waves to find fault lines
• the 6.3 earthquake near Ica, Peru on 30. January amazingly was only chosen by one student — I thought the coverage would have resulted in more entries (I mean, I heard about it on NPR in the 5 minute roundup…)
• Moon magnetic dynamo and what fueled it (based on recent Science article — behind paywall)
• the Little Ice Age caused by non-specificed volcanic eruptions topic was also chosen (original Geophysical Research Letters article & Erik’s commentary on Eruptions)
• Cleveland’s new dome also made an appearance (Erik also mentioned this recently)
• In the case of one of my physical students finding an article that Solar System could use, a new alien planet that is within the habitable zone was announced (article itself isn’t too bad)

I’ll have Solar System’s news for week #3 up in a bit — they’re taking an exam at the moment, so I have time to grade & collect the links.

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