THREE EXAMPLES OF THE USE OF INQUIRY-BASED, DATA-CENTERED EXERCISES IN GEOSCIENCE COURSES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS

We provide three examples of exercises developed for geology courses at the University of St. Thomas designed specifically to give students the experience of collecting and/or interpreting geoscience data. The first, the "Mammoth Cave Lab", is used in a Geology of the National Parks course. In this lab, students work with a set of maps of the Mammoth Cave system to discern whether the caves have a preferred orientation and, if so, why? Small groups of students initally make an hypothesis as to whether the caves have a preferred orientation, then they measure the orientation of cave passages on a small subset of the total map collection. These small groups pool their data with progressively larger groups, compiling rose diagrams of passage orientation at each step. This exercise specifically asks students to generate and test a hypothesis, then demonstrates to them that the larger the dataset, the more robust the results. The second, "Red Beans, Rice, and Slope Stability", derives from an article by Densmore et al. (1997) and is used in a sophomore-level geomorphology course. In this lab, students simulate the failure of fractured, sedimentary rock as a river undermines the toe of slope using a simple and easy-to-build experimental apparatus. Initially, students are asked to speculate on the behavior of the experiment before running it, thereby generating an hypothesis. They then run the experiment to determine the behavior of the experimental 'slope.' Finally, they are asked to submit a lab write-up where they describe their results and critically evaluate the experiment. This lab is followed by a group discussion assignment centered on the journal article. The third, "Basin and Range Tectonic Geomorphology," was developed for the same geomorphology course. The lab centers on the question, "can range-bounding fault morphology be used to analyze tectonic activity across the basin and range?" Small groups of students use USGS digital elevation models to map mountain front sinuosity on one 1:24000 quadrangle. Their individual data are pooled into a dataset that represents a transect across Nevada at the latitude of Reno. Students must critically analyze these data, in concert with GPS and seismicity maps, to answer the basic question posed in the lab.