Geog 107 - Our Dynamic Earth

Fall 2023

Important Dates:

20 September  (wed) classes start

26 September - end of drop/add

11 October. EXAM 1 (wed)

19 October: last day to withdraw, 50% refund

3 November, EXAM 2 (friday)

6November - uncontested withdraw deadline.

10 November, no class, Veteran's Day

22-24 November - no class, Thanksgiving break

1 December, last day of class

5 December, (tuesday) 8-10AM. Final Exam

 

 

 

 

Important Files

Lectures

  • Week 1: went over syllabus and stuff. Study tips. Demo of Google Earth and assigned lab 1. Started in on earth-sun relationships.
  • Week 2: Weather, fronts, and hurricanes. Ozone
  • Week 3: Oceans. Started Climate change
  • Week 4: Acid Rain.Tectonics
    • Exam. Wednesday, 11 October. Covers everything through climate change. You may bring ONE 4"x6" (or smaller) piece of paper with HAND WRITTEN notes on it to the exam. Writing on both sides allowed.
    • Q&A session. Tuesday, 20 October. 4 PM in our classroom - or another room on the first floor. Look around.
  • Week 5: Volcanos, volcano pics, earthquakes,
  • Week 6: Geology of WA. Sculpted by Flood, Water
  • Week 7: Groundwater. Weathering
    • Exam. Thursday, 3 November. Covers acid rain through water.
    • You may bring ONE 4"x6" (or smaller) piece of paper with HAND WRITTEN notes on it to the exam. Writing on both sides allowed.
    • Q&A session wed, 2 November at 4PM.
  • Week 8: Mass Wasting. Mineral Resources,
    • Cane Toads. Yes, information regarding this movie will be on the weekly quiz and final exam.
    • No class on friday - Veteran's Day.
    • The weekly quiz will go live on thursday at noon, and still be due sunday by midnight.
    • The weekly in the news will still be due friday.
  • Week 9: biogeography, .
  • Week 10: Glaciers,
    • No class Wed/Thu/Fri - Thanksgiving break. Make sure you eat too much, be thankful for something, and root against the Cowboys.
  • Week 11: Deserts, Karst
  • Week 12: Final exam. Tuesday, December 5, 8-10 AM. You may bring ONE 4"x6" (or smaller) piece of paper with HAND WRITTEN notes on it to the exam. Writing on both sides allowed.
    • Q&A session Monday, 4  December at 4:00PM.

Lab Exercises

  • Lab 1: Intro to Google Earth. Work through this lab and answer the questions. Then take the online (Canvas) quiz. Quiz must be completed by midnight, wednesday, 27 Sept.
  • Lab 2: Weather and climate on Google Earth. Open the lab itself and the data and start working with step 1, part C. Put your answers on this answer sheet. When done, go online and do the quiz. Online quiz due at midnight on October 5. If you want to look at it, there's also a small ppt which goes along with the lab that might help explain some of the concepts.
  • Lab 3: Temperature, humidity, and precipitation. Online quiz due October 10. Yes, this material will be fair game on Exam 1.
  • Lab 4: Tectonics. The data you need is here. Online quiz due October.
  • Lab 5: Tsunamis. Work through it. Original source data is here: one and two. The quiz is online and must be completed by October
  • Lab 6: Missoula Floods. Canvas quiz. October
  • Lab 7: Fluvial stuff. Data is here. Canvas quiz must be completed by midnight on November.
  • Lab 8: Ecological Calculator. Unlike earlier labs, for this lab, you will type the answers to the questions into a word document, which you then upload. File must be submitted on Canvas by November. Hmmm...
  • Lab 9: Glaciers. Data is HERE. Canvas quiz must be completed by midnight November.
  • Extra Credit lab. Worth up to 2 points. Goto this website (free website registration, though it might not be necessary anymore), add at least a dozen criteria - but probably many more to get useful results. What I need proof of is your map. If you're not seeing the map itself change, hit F5 (reload). Take a screenshot. All I really need is the map and the list of top matches (in other words, I don't need to see your criteria - not my business). To get just this, use the windows snipping tool (no clue on a mac....). If you've never used this tool, google is, as always, your friend. Copy the screenshot into a word document and upload it in canvas.
    • If you're wondering about this lab, remember, all quarter we've been talking about where to live. There are a number of natural world criteria built into this! Be sure to take a look at all the counties which are over 90% matches - these are all places you might consider working at some point in the future.
    • Due by midnight on friday of the last week of class (1 December).
    • Note, sometimes the data doesn't show up on the map. To get around this, I goto share, copy the link, then paste it into another browser tab. Terrible workaround, but it seems to work. Odd... everything seems to work fine in Chrome (I had issues in Firefox).

In the News (sample version)

Do the following:
1. Outline the paper (in outline format, about 1/2 a page). Examples of outline format at 1 or 2.
2. Summarize the main points of the article (at least one paragraph, depending on the complexity of the paper) and how the info in the article might relate to other papers, lectures, other readings, your own experience, etc… In other words, show that you have thought about the article, not just rehashed the last paragraph or two. About half a page.

When grading outlines, I ask the question 'did the student read the paper.'

When grading summaries, I ask the question 'did the student think about the paper.' In short, if all the information in the summary is in the paper, I cannot give full credit.

Note, the NY Times requires a subscription. Fortunately, CWU now buys one for you! Seriously, this is awesome. Go here and follow the instructions.

note, for the curious, the New Yorker article that started the whole frenzy is at

  • News 6: Due friday, 3 November. Note, read the little bit at this link, then follow the three "discover Elwah River Restoration" links. The writeup must include all of these.
  • News 7: due friday, 10 November.
  • News 8: and this. Give me writeups for both (in one word document) Due Friday, 17 November.
  • News 9: Due Friday, 1 December.

Online Quizzes:

Remember the online quizzes every week. They will be posted on Canvas every friday afternoon and will be due by midnight that coming Sunday. They will cover a handful of topics covered during the previous week.