Simplifying Earthquakes

Here is a great post from Matt over at Research at a Snail's Pace (boy that is how I feel right now) breaking down earthquakes into a simple brick and spring model. This might make it to my classroom someday (If I can figure out how to jury-rig something similar.)

A Teaching Lab that puts the Alternative in P.A.G.E.

So Matt over at Research at a Snail's Pace recently put up this lab that I feel puts the Alternative in the "Presenting Alternatives in Geoscience Education (P.A.G.E.)". He is measuring the thickness of tombstones and determining the amount of weathering based on the difference in the thickness at the top and bottom of the tombstone and using the date on the tombstone as the starting point of weathering.

Fantastic lab and make sure you head on over to check it out. Now if it didn't creep me out so much maybe I could do this as well.

Intro to Science - Day 1 question

So a new semester begins again and I have a new question to get my students to start thinking logically and in a scientific frame of mind. (my previous Intro question)

Which one of these boxes is not like the others? Explain your answer.

So far, out of the people I have asked (before my lab actually started):

      Undergrad - 1 answer which was wrong (did not answer the question)

      Brand New Grad Student - 2 answers both of which were wrong (did not answer the question)

      Finishing Masters Student - 3 answers all correct

      Finishing PhD Student - ~6 answers although needed to be coaxed to actually answer the question

My conclusions are that the more education you have the more you over think the question.

Demonstrating a Volcanic Eruption with a Soda Bottle

Demonstrating a Volcanic Eruption Using a Soda Bottle

Geological Lesson

How is a magma chamber like a soda bottle? Well let’s look at what a magma chamber is. A magma chamber is an enclosed space that contains magma as well as dissolved gases. The more gas that is dissolved into the magma the greater the pressure there is on the magma chamber. The magma chamber then is sealed in some way. This is usually by a previous lava flow, providing a lava “cap” on the chamber. When this cap is removed or broken the pressure is released and the gas forces the magma out of the magma chamber producing a volcanic eruption.

            A soda bottle is an enclosed space with a cap. It contains liquid soda as well as carbon dioxide (CO₂) added into the mixture. When shaken up the CO₂ is mixed into the soda producing higher amounts of pressure on the bottle. When the pressure is release, either through removing the cap or puncturing the bottle in some way, the gas and the soda are forced out of the bottle.

So, a magma chamber is a lot like a shaken soda bottle. The shaking produces the same effect of having the gases dissolved in the magma. Although, there have been recent studies that have shown that the number of volcanic eruptions increase the following year after a major earthquake.

Step 1: Use a small bottle of soda. Shake the bottle up for a little bit (roughly around 5 minutes). Describe the similarities between a magma chamber and a soda bottle while you are shaking this up.

Step 2: Place the bottle on the ground and puncture the cap with something. I find a Phillips head screwdriver the best. You don’t want to open the cap because then the soda will explode sideways, instead of upwards.

Here is a video of the demonstration as well.

You can check out other Out of The Box teaching ideas as well as a downloadable pdf of this one at my website by clicking the link.

Demonstrating Earthquake Effects Using Jell-O and Rice Crispy Treats

Demonstrating Earthquake Effects Using Jell-O and Rice Krispy Treats

Geological Lesson

The effects that earthquakes have on the ground, and the buildings built upon it, all depends on the ground material. Bedrock will usually move as one solid object and sediment and mud will shake like Jell-O. The reason for this is a term called liquefaction.

Liquefaction means that when shaken, unconsolidated sediments have a tendency to act more like a viscous liquid, due to water content and the fact that the individual particles are not cemented together. This means that the ground will often move around and wobble back and forth, very similar to a bowl of Jell-O that has been shaken. So in my demonstration I wanted to show my students the differences between the two substratums (rock and sediment).

 

For the consolidated sediment I used Rice Krispy Treats because the marshmallow acts similar to the binding agents in most sedimentary rocks. Jell-O, obviously, became my substratum for the unconsolidated sediments. For building materials I looked around for a while and my wife came up with the idea of cutting sugar wafers into little bricks and building little buildings with them.

Step 1: Make the bedrock. Make the Rice Krispy Treats as you normally would, following the directions on the side of the box. Then lay them out in a rather thin pan. I used a 13x9” pan.

Step 2: Make the unconsolidated sediment. I followed the directions for normal Jell-O on the box (quick set method) but you may want to make it like the Jigglers, which involve less water and make the Jell-O a little harder. I then set this out in a thin pan about the same size as the Rice Krispy Treat pan. You want the layer to be thin to mimic a layer of sediment.

Step 3: Cut up the sugar wafers into little square bricks. Then proceed to stack the bricks on each of the surfaces. I made three different building heights. They were three, four, and five bricks high set up as a square with four bricks on each level. On the Jell-O surface I found it easier to use two long bricks on the bottom to add extra support, but then I built up the remaining bricks similar the Rice Krispy Treat bricks.

Step 4. The next step was to shake both pans. I usually shake the bedrock pan lightly and increase in strength until the largest building falls down. I find that it actually takes quite a bit of work to get one of them to fall over.

Step 5. Then shake the Jell-O tray with an equal amount of force and time (as best as you can) as the Rice Crispy tray. Almost all of the buildings should fall down.

Step 6. Show the two comparisons side by side. This should give a good demonstration indicating the effect of similar size earthquakes on two different subsurfaces. The students also get a nice snack at the end. Although I found that the bricks absorbed the moisture from the Jell-O rather easily and made them a bit soggy.

You can check out other Out of The Box teaching ideas as well as a downloadable pdf of this one at my website by clicking the link.

Teaching Folds - Using Play-Doh

One day when I was coming up with a lesson idea for showing students what folds look when the have been eroded, I kept thinking cinnamon rolls would be awesome to show them. But they might not work right, you can't really change the folds, and it would be expensive. That's when I thought of Play-doh. Basically it overcomes all those obstacles. You can find a PDF of this exercise as well as any other Out of the Box Geological Lessons at my website here. So here we go.

Step 1: you need Play-doh in at least 3 colors. I purchased a box of 16 and combined like colors to get enough to work with. Play-doh mixes rather well with a little work. A rolling pin and a knife. I prefer something sharp so the lines are clean.

Step 2: Roll out each of the colors. Try to keep them thick and about the same size.

Step 3: Stack the layers together.

Step 4: Trim the edges so you have a nice neat rectangle.

Making sure the layers are thick enough. I found that if you roll the layers after they have been stacked to make the surface area larger causes a real big head-ache when trying to get the Play-doh apart again.

Step 5: Make your folds. I found that making a syncline with 2 anticlines on the outsides help make the plunging syncline produce the best structures. It also saves time on making different models.

Step 6: Non-plunging folds. Cut clean across the top creating nice parallel bands.

Step 7: Plunging folds. Cut at an angle across the fold. I found the best plunging syncline is produced when you cut across from the bottom corner to the top back corner as shown in the picture.

The direction of plunge in down in the picture. It corresponds to the right side in the previous picture.

Another view to show the front anticlines and syncline.

Out of The Box Geological Lesson Ideas

So I set up a new portion of my website under the GeoEducation banner for my Out of The Box Geological Lessons. The first lesson up is a retooling of something I posted about a little while ago, which was my Introduction to Science lecture (now in PDF format). I should have a new post up in the next couple of days with another OoTB Geological Lesson idea.

The Accretionary Wedge #19 - Out of the Box Teaching Ideas

Teaching is a tricky thing. You want the students to learn, but you want them to learn in such a way that they can remember the information and reiterate it if necessary. The problem with many classes now-a-days is that teaching to most teachers involves standing in front of a lecture hall, reading off notes, based on a textbook, that the students have neither any desire to read and if they do happen to read, obtain little useful knowledge out of it. Granted this may be a bleak view of education but this is sometimes how it seems.

So this months Accretionary Wedge is based on this:

"What out of the box ideas do you use to teach people about geology or geological concepts?" No need to limit yourself on ideas you have actively used. If you have used it and you think it is good, great. Is it an idea you have worked up on and gotten ready but haven't had the chance to use it yet, also great (this is pretty much my scenario). What if it is just a theory that you think would be something different and cool, even better. Anything works, as long as it is "Outside the Box" (i.e. not your typical lecture and textbook approach).

And boy did we get a wide variety of ideas. Actually the ideas were spread out enough that made me think that different people use the different senses to try and teach. Anything from touch to taste was sampled and tried, and here are the results of our experiments (some experiments fall into multiple categories so I am only going to list it under the one that seems the most appropriate or fun).

Look

Out of the five senses this is the easiest for people to take advantage of in teaching. We live in a visual world and geology is in part a visual science. With that in mind, several of my own teaching ideas have taken advantage of this including using geological movies as a teaching tool, (You can check out Part 1 of Dante's Peak) or using classic works of literature to introduce different geological concepts (like creating topo maps in Thoreau's Walden).

Kim over at All My Faults are Stress Related has gone in a different direction. Instead of blocking her student's use of the internet, she encourages it. She uses the internet and Google Earth to teach about volcanoes across the globe. She directs the students to pick one of several volcanoes and using Google Earth, they have to determine if there are recent eruptions and evidence of lava, ash fall, or mudflows. After that they can use the Global Volcanism Program to get other information available on the volcanoes including recent eruptions and the type of lava erupted.

Listen

Using hearing as a teaching tool is not a novel idea. Typically this is the principle learning technique used in lectures but there are novel ways that this can be used. Dr. Tony Ekdale had come up with a unique way to use sonification in paleontology. "In paleontology, it is possible to render various aspects of fossil shapes, such as cephalopod suture patterns or brachiopod commissure lines, as a series of musical tones that can be recognized easily by the human ear... Evocative sounds can generate vivid images in our mind's eye. For several centuries, natural sounds have been incorporated into art." He used the natural variances in suture patterns and other paleontological patterns to create differing audible patterns. Definitely a unique take on paleontology.

Touch

Out of most of the sciences out there, geology is one of the few where touch is the principle method of learning. You need to touch and look at the rocks, minerals, maps and so on to really get a grasp at what you are dealing with. With that in mind Lockwood over at Outside the Interzone has come up with several different methods where students can use their hands to create different Earth systems. Some of his highlighted activities includes creating a 13 meter (that's right, 13 meter!) 1:1,000,000 scale cross section of the earth to demonstrate convection. Another is using iron filings and a magnet to show "how magnetic inclination can be used to determine paleolatitude." He also links to the massive manual From Mountains to Monsoons that he helped work on with step by step instructions on how to complete these and several other activities.

Taste

Food seems to be a big motivation factor in alternative teaching. Christie over at Christie at the cape currently uses cake (that's right, mmmmm cake) to teach about deformation. "As it turns out, cake deforms elastically at low stress and non-recoverably (let's call it viscous) at higher stress. The students cut as many sample cores from the cake as they can. This leads to a bit of waste, invariably eaten, thereby increasing the general level of (blood sugar) excitement in the room. Load is applied by placing other food items (of labeled mass, e.g. small cans and jars) on top of the cake cores. The students measure the surface area of contact and calculate applied stress."

A bit fattening maybe, but an awesome use of baked goods. Another healthier example is brought to us by Ian over at Hypo-theses who wants to use "a banana as an analogue for rock deformation in general, and fault propagation folding in particular. Grasp an end in each hand leaving at least the central third free. Slowly move your hands towards each other. Initially the banana will deform ductilely, and actually thicken. After the initial thickening, the banana will start to fold." He accompanies these instructions with step by step pictures of a slowly deforming banana as well as a real life comparison to his mutated fruit. And when your done, you can counter act that sheet of cake you ate previously.

Smell

Smell is one weird teaching technique that is a bit hard to quantify so I determined that Callan's method from the NOVA Geoblog about using sweat stains as an analogy for ore bodies is the best "smell learning technique". It shows how "certain types of ore bodies are thought to be 'sweated out' from magma chambers as they intrude to shallow enough levels in the crust... These hydrothermal disseminated deposits end up in the pore spaces of surrounding rocks, or filling in cracks. This is kind of like how your body sweats out a solution of dissolved salts in water." Ewww, but definitely a fitting analogy, if not a smelly one. He also goes on to describe how peanut butter between bread can be used to show how igneous sills work and how a Mack truck can be used to show how exotic terrains can be accumulated by a drifting continent.

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So although there is a preponderance of typical teaching methods in the geological education community, there definitely is no shortage of people with fantastic and a little wacky out of the box teaching ideas. And who knows, perhaps someday some of these examples will become the norm in teaching.

Make sure you check out next month's Accretionary Wedge being hosted by Dave over at cryology and co.

Body images from http://www.clipartof.com/details/clipart/53287.html

Due TODAY!!! Accretionary Wedge

As I get ready to go off to my first day of school in 4 years with my backpack and my new school clothes I am reminded that today is the due date for the new Accretionary Wedge. Our back-to-school theme is Out of the box teaching ideas. So head on over to the original post and post a link to your entry. Any late submissions will be added as I have time.

Accretionary Wedge - Teaching Ideas

I just read an article by my advisor, Dr. Tony Ekdale, that fits perfectly into the new - Accretionary Wedge: Out of the Box Teaching Ideas - that I figured I would go ahead and mention it here.

The article is called Paleontological Sonification: Letting music bring fossils to your ears (clicking on the link will bring you to the full article). The article goes into depth on how to bring things like cephalopod suture patterns, trace fossil locomotion trails, and pelecypods hinge dentition patterns into an audible realm and allow the students to decipher subtle differences between different classes and species of an organism (or traces). The article is very in depth on how to do this as well as giving three real life lab examples and some of the students reactions to it.

Very interesting and a perfect example of what I wish to compile with this new Accretionary Wedge.

Reminder: ***Accretionary Wedge Deadline in 1 Week***

As I was reminded by Lockwood the deadline for the next Accretionary Wedge: Out of the Box Teaching Ideas is fast approaching (1 week from today, Friday Aug 21st). Please leave comments with a link to your submission on the original post Here.

Accretionary Wedge - Time to think OUT of the Box

This is the next call for submissions for August's edition of the Accretionary Wedge. You can find July's edition, Geologic Inspiration at Volcanista's Magmalicious Blog.

Having been particularly interested in geological education for sometime, I have wrestled with the best ways to teach students. Now we all have to admit that not everything in geology will appeal to everyone (some more than others) and not everything has the glitz and glamour of volcanoes and earthquakes. So how do we as geological professionals get out that information. There is the standard textbook and lecture approach, but that often fails to get the ADD generations attention. In this ever evolving world of technology and instant communication, what is there that is useful that we could use to teach the next generation. I for one have thought about using bad geology movies or references in fiction literature as possible teaching tools. I figure if the information is coming from an unusual source, they might be apt to remember it better.

So your mission is this: "What out of the box ideas do you use to teach people about geology or geological concepts?" No need to limit yourself on ideas you have actively used. If you have used it and you think it is good, great. Is it an idea you have worked up on and gotten ready but haven't had the chance to use it yet, also great (this is pretty much my scenario). What if it is just a theory that you think would be something different and cool, even better. Anything works, as long as it is "Outside the Box" (i.e. not your typical lecture and textbook approach).

The deadline is Friday, August 21st since this is the last Friday before classes start (for me at least). And this way I can compile responses over the weekend. Early submissions are recommended but not necessary since I probably won't get to combining them until after the deadline. Late submissions will be added as I get time. Leave your link in the comments section below.