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 Labs |
This section contains World Wind based labs I have used in my Geology Class. World Wind is useful for labs because it allows the students to easily access some real data sets. Most of these labs were from before the measure tool was incorporated into the program and I expect to change them significantly to include this valuable tool. Currently I only have the lab handouts that are given to the students but a teacher addition and a PDF version will be added when I rewrite the labs for the measure tool. With a couple of exceptions (the earthquake labs) these labs can easily be modified to work with Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth as well. Access each lab by clicking on the image associated with it.
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A Planetary Comparison - A lab introducing viewing images in world wind and using it to look at landforms on the earth, the moon and mars to compare the geography and geology of these three bodies and collect information to explain the evolution of both the solar system and the Earth. |
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Discovering Plate Boundaries - Based on a lab by Dale S Saywer. Students break up into small groups to look at different pieces of evidence for plate tectonic theory. They then split into new groups to synthesize the different data sets to define plate boundaries in a particular region. |
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Volcano Scavenger Hunt - In this lab students look at various volcanoes around the globe to identify different types of volcanic features and learn how to identify the type of volcanism from remote clues. |
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Evolution of a Hot Spot Volcano- In this lab students look at several major volcanoes in the hawaiian chain of differing ages looking at there volcanic and topographic characteristics. From these observations stages for development of the volcanoes can be developed. |
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Mass Wasting Events - This is a lab focusing on mass wasting processes and prevention. First several major mass wasting features are classified according to their physical characteristics. Two landslides in particular are looked at in detail including the Vaiont Slide in Italy that clamed several hundred lives. Finally an area around Mayon Volcano in the Philippines is examined to assess the risk of mudslides in several towns and compared to actual damage from Typhoon Duran in 2006. |
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River Profile: Brahmaputra River- This lab looks at how the physical and Geomorphologic characteristics of the Brahmaputra River change over its course from Tibet to Bangladesh. After a regional look at the river is taken, it is split into 73 virtual field stations where measurements of channel width, flood plain width, elevation and channel geomorphology are taken. This data is then collected together and analyzed. |
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Earthquakes- Intensity Scales and Occurrence-This looks at earthquake occurrence on the global scale. The recent and Historical earthquake add-ons (included in version ) are used to look at occurrence of differed magnitude and depths of earthquakes and there relation to plate boundaries. |
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Earthquakes Pt. 2: Slip and Aftershocks - This lab focus specifically on the 2003 Alaska Range earthquake, the 2004 Parkfield Earthquake and the San Andreas fault system. Both World Wind and web resources are used to take a close look at these earthquakes, foreshocks and aftershocks, the relationship between aftershocks and the zone of rupture and topographic features indicative of the presence of active faults. |
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Earthquakes Pt. 3: Locating the Fault - In this lab we will look at how the trace of a fault can be defined, both through seismic activity and with geomorphic features. Several locations along the San Andreas fault which we will visit on our field trip will be investigated with the goal of determining the trace of the fault |
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Mass Wasting and the Devils Slide - This is a lab focusing on mass wasting processes and prevention. students look at several mass wasting events in the San Francisco area and the rest of the world and classify them. They then look more closely at the devils slide area, locate the hazardous areas and look for an alternative rout around the slide. This lab also uses a freeware program called Microdem. for Microdem you also need to have the topographic data on your computer SDTS format. A link to the USGS server to get the data is here. |
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River Features- This lab compares different river systems in different climatological and geological areas. These different river systems are explored at different locations along there course to see how there features and size change along their length. |
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Steve Wood |
| Science Department | |
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Phone (925)-362-7572 |