Geology 110
Winter 2012
Introduction
This course is designed to give you a tour through the planet Earth - from the inside to the outside and from the past to the present. Think of it as the opposite of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth with more science and less science fiction. In the first half of the course (with Sarah), we’ll learn about the large-scale structure of the Earth, the formation of mountains, explosive processes like volcanoes and earthquakes, as well as some basics about rocks and minerals. In the second half of the course (with Mary), we'll learn about issues that affect humans on Earth including climate, water, and energy resources, as well as some extraterrestrial geology.Learning goals
Much of your success in this course will be measured on your ability to think like a scientist rather than your ability to recall facts (although a moderate amount of recollection of concepts and terms is necessary, too).Text
Reynolds, Johnson, Kelly, Morin & Carter, 2008. Exploring Geology, McGraw Hill.Grading
This is the breakdown for grading. For more information about each category, continue reading below this list.- 40% - Exams
- 10% - Homework and class participation
- 20% - Laboratory exercises
- 10% - Geology in the News
- 20% - Hometown Project
Exams
There will be several in-class exams. For the first half of the course, these are scheduled for third and fourth weeks, with a quiz and an exam, respectively. The details for the second half will be announced later.Homework, class participation, labs etc.
We may assign short homework exercises based on the reading and/or course material. These are designed to allow exploration of important concepts in geology or current geology events in the news. There may be unannounced in-class quizzes about the reading material. Class participation (and obviously attendance) is expected for all class and lab meetings. Lab activities are usually turned in as a group. Please be neat. Lab exercises are typically due at the end of lab.Geology-in-the-News
Each week, a group of students will be responsible for presenting a weekly wrap-up of geologic events that have happened in the news that week. This is meant to be a 10-15 minute presentation in lab. Each student in your group should discuss 2-3 stories from the news, with accompanying images. Choose actual news sources (e.g., NY Times, Washington Post, Economist, your hometown paper etc.) not nerd science sites (Science Daily, Science News, Yahoo science news), although the nerd sites might help you track down good stories. Because this is a graded presentation, be sure to practice with your group and arrive in lab early the day of your presentation in order to make sure that it is set up. Here are a few more specific tips:1. For each story, give us the reference (what paper it comes from, what date it was printed).
2. Show us a location map for each story. You can make your own easily in Google maps.
3. Remember to talk about the images that you put in your presentation. Use the laser pointer to indicate important features in each diagram that your audience should be looking at.
4. A good rule of thumb is that you should spend about a minute per slide. If you spend multiple minuters per image, then you probably should find more images that illustrate what you're talking about.
5. Another good rule of thumb: For each story, tell us what the main point was. Then spend a little bit of time on the "geology behind the story." This is especially important for topics that we haven't talked about in detail in class.
6. The TAs have office hours on Wednesday nights specifically to listen to your practice talk. You should always practice - it will help you get the flow of your talking down and eliminate unnecessary umms...ehhs...and other filler words.