Crossing Boundaries

"CUGIR is an active online repository in the National Spatial Data Clearinghouse program. CUGIR provides geospatial data and metadata for New York State, with special emphasis on those natural features relevant to agriculture, ecology, natural resources, and human-environment interactions."

"This lesson, developed by the Carbon Mitigation Program, contains background information and an interactive, hands-on game that allows players to define strategies for reducing CO2 emissions and find solutions for the world's greenhouse gas problem. This game is based on peer-reviewed, current research and is a wonderful introduction to carbon policy and energy solutions. "

"The modern theory of Plate Tectonics is a combination of two earlier ideas, continental drift and sea-floor spreading. Once scorned, much evidence has now led to the acceptance of this theory by most geologists and geophysicists. In fact, Plate Tectonics is used to explain many global events such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain building, etc. You will relate the distribution of earthquake, volcanoes, and faults to the location of tectonic plates by mapping the locations of each of these processes. "

"This module contains an exercise in which students are asked to examine the frequency and distribution of earthquake epicenters and compare these epicenters to the distribution of plate boundaries and cities. Students download earthquake epicenters for the last several days and for an entire year from the Internet, and map the information using ArcView geographic information system (GIS), and analyze the patterns that become evident. The module presents background information on earthquakes and GIS, and includes step-by-step instructions for using the technological tools. This module can be adapted to a wide range of grade levels and may be presented as an introductory GIS exercise. It may be completed without a GIS by using a paper base map, but requires access to the World Wide Web (see Module Overview and Instructor's Notes)."

Understand how floods occur, and why floodplains are important to communities, with a case study of Boulder, Colorado, USA.

GIS lesson analyzing tornado activity

"Students examine North Atlantic hurricanes from 1851 to 2001 over space and time using GIS tools and methods, analyzing hurricane direction, patterns, specific damaging hurricanes, the characteristics of hurricanes near world and specific cities, hurricanes in specific states in the USA and Mexico, and characteristics of hurricanes that passed near the students' hometown. "

"In this 50-question activity, you will determine the best locations to site a wind energy farm in Colorado. You will use GIS as your primary investigative tool and use spatial analysis techniques to consider the best site. You will consider highways, wind speed, cities, size of polygon, contiguity, elevation, federal land, and will perform a number of geoprocessing functions including dissolve, intersect, erase, join, and more to arrive at your conclusion. "

Mapping climate patterns, tornadoes, hurricanes, seismic activity, ecoregions and urban forests.

"The Hog Wild curriculum is an interdisciplinary unit designed to engage students in a simulation focused on the establishment of a hog farm in their local watershed. Students prepare for and engage in a simulated town council hearing on the establishment of a particular hog farm in the area. Participating groups of students will take on the role of different stakeholders, conduct research from the perspective of that group, create GIS maps to support their positions, and then present and defend their positions during the two day hearing. One goal of Hog Wild is to help students see the political, social and economic dimensions of environmental issues. This website contains a growing set of resources designed to support this curriculum. "

"Using GIS software applications can assist you in observing patterns in data as well as potential risks. Scientists use several indicators to monitor the quality and vulnerability of a watershed, which are recorded into a database. However, without the use of a GIS it would be difficult to assess the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. "