Purpose of The Coal and Energy Unit

Coal is a part of our daily lives, but how often do we think about its importance? Coal generates over half our electricity and provides Pennsylvanians with thousands of jobs at mines, power plants, and in the transportation industry.

We hope that the students will gain an understanding of:

The "Discovering Plate Boundaries" exercise: http://plateboundary.rice.edu/home.html, developed by Dale Sawyer at Rice University, requires students to examine global maps and observe, describe, and classify data. No prior knowledge of plate tectonics, geography, or Earth science is required for students. This activity has been popular in middle school, high school, and university classrooms, at the beginning or the end of a tectonics unit.

I came across this exercise on the Project Exploration website and have used it as an in-class exercise for a course I teach on Dinosaurs.  My goals are to get students to think about what is involved in preparing and carrying out a field expedition, as well as to engage students in a basic quantitative exercise.  I like to expose my students to the process of science, and in this case, what it takes to think about and prepare for an expedition in the desert.

This is a take-home assignment for students.  I teach an introductory-level course on dinosaurs at the college level.  One of my goals in all of my courses is for students to be familiar with the scientists that are the founders of the discipline, and to know who the current researchers are in the field.