FROM INTRO GEO TO GIS: EXAMPLES FROM CREATIVE FACULTY ACROSS THE COUNTRY FOR TEACHING UNDERGRADUATE GEOSCIENCE COURSES USING PLANETARY DATA

Undergraduate geoscience courses are typically taught using only terrestrial examples. Integrating examples from other planets into commonly taught undergraduate courses, however, provides a unique, timely, and exciting opportunity for students to test their observation and data analysis skills in a new planetary environment. The wealth of recent data from other planets on everything from geophysics to climate change provides an opportunity to expand examples beyond the terrestrial realm in undergraduate courses ranging from intro geo to GIS, from hydrogeology to petrology, from structural geology to paleontology. Indeed, data are available in so many fields of geoscience that it is difficult to imagine an undergraduate geoscience course that could not be enhanced by extraterrestrial examples.

Readily available data sets for planets other than the Earth have made it possible for faculty to develop outstanding assignments and activities that emphasize data analysis and that provide students with first hand experience in the kind of analyses that geoscientists use to better understand geologic processes and histories on both the Earth and other planets. This talk will feature examples from creative undergraduate faculty around the country who have developed this kind of data-rich experience for students. Examples include: from an intro geo course, reading geologic maps and introducing the concept of relative dating using data from the Moon and Mars; from a hydrogeology course, estimating the discharge from Ares Vallis; from a GIS course, terrain analysis for landing site selection on the Moon or Mars; from a structural geology course, estimating regional extension using THEMIS images of Mars graben; from a petrology course, analysis of factors affecting morphology and development of lava flows and cinder cones on the Earth, Mars, and Venus; from a sedimentary geology course, interpretation of Martian sedimentary environments in Meridiani Planum; from a geochemistry course, using spectroscopy to determine Martian or lunar mineralogy; from a surface processes course, analysis of drainage networks on Mars; from a global change course, analysis of matter-energy cycles on Mars; from a paleontology course, analysis of life in extreme environments and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.