WEB-WATCHING OF NATURAL GEO-PHENOMENA

Each semester hundreds of 1^st and 2^nd year students at The University of Arizona enroll in “Geological Disasters and Society,” a general education course. The centerpiece in the class we taught (fall, 2010) was WEB-WATCHING, requiring students throughout the semester to tap into websites that post latest information on contemporary earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. These sites included NASA Earth Observatory, USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, Stormpulse (NASA imagery), Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (NOAA), Volcano Hazards Program (USGS), and Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS). We provided our students with global and regional base maps on which they plotted locations where geo-phenomena were operating. The maps grew into comprehensive samplings of a semester’s worth of geo-phenomena. Our students plotted earthquakes (only those >M_w 6.0), tsunami, hurricanes, volcanoes, regional floods, and giant wildfires on global maps. They plotted hurricane tracks on a map base of eastern North America and the Caribbean. They plotted earthquakes and wildfires on a map base of western North America. Students kept a spreadsheet of data such as dates, durations, magnitudes, and levels/ranges/magnitudes of activity.

WEB-WATCHING provided a hands-on opportunity to interactively explore active natural disaster phenomena. Most students were stunned to see the frequency and variety geo-phenomena that occur ‘constantly.’ By locating the geo-phenomena on maps, students expanded their knowledge of geography and improved their skills in latitude/longitude ‘navigation.’ They witnessed the connections between earthquakes/volcanoes/tsunami and plate tectonics; between hurricanes and global circulation patterns; between regional flooding and major river systems; and between wildfires and microclimates/physiography.

Some students may have felt that the discipline required to keep maps/spreadsheets up to date on all phenomena was burdensome. Next time we would reduce to weeks or a couple of months the periods during which students would keep track of hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding (i.e., we would use a ‘seasonal’ approach). However we would maintain the emphasis on keeping a full semester’s global record of earthquakes, tsunami, and volcanoes.