EARTH 520
Plate Tectonics and People

Choose your Scientist

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Directions

  1. First, you need to pick a scientist. I have made a list of scientists below, but you are not limited to this list. Once you have decided on one, go into the Canvas lesson 2 space and find the pages that are now titled "scientist 1","scientist 2", etc. Go in and edit one of them so that the name of your scientist and your own name appear at the top. Then I'll go in and change the page title. This way other students will know who has been picked already.

    Pick me! Pick me! Some possible Scientists for Lesson 2:

    • Don Anderson
    • Tanya Atwater
    • Brian Atwater
    • Francis Bacon
    • Markus Båth
    • Hugo Benioff
    • Bernard Bruhnes
    • Teddy Bullard
    • Allan Cox
    • Brent Dalrymple
    • Charles Darwin
    • Arthur Day
    • Robert Dietz
    • Richard Doell
    • Maurice Ewing
    • Beno Gutenberg
    • Edmond Halley
    • Harry Hess
    • Arthur Holmes
    • Bryan Isacks
    • Thomas Jaggar
    • Harold Jeffreys
    • Tom Jordan
    • Brian Kennett
    • Inge Lehmann
    • Xavier le Pichon
    • Drummond Matthews
    • Motonori Matuyama
    • Dan McKenzie
    • Felix Andries Vening Meinesz
    • Giuseppe Mercalli
    • John Milne
    • Andrija Mohorovičić
    • W. Jason Morgan
    • Lawrence Morley
    • Richard Dixon Oldham
    • Jack Oliver
    • Fusakichi Omori
    • Bob Parker
    • Harry Reid
    • Charles Richter
    • Keith Runcorn
    • Chris Scholz
    • Eduard Suess
    • Lynn Sykes
    • Marie Tharp
    • Alex du Toit
    • Frederick Vine
    • Kiyoo Wadati
    • Alfred Wegener
    • John Tuzo Wilson
    • Peter Alfred Ziegler

  2. Once you have chosen a scientist, you need to spend a little time researching the life and times of whoever you chose. Best practice is to find and read a paper they wrote. I can help you traverse the Penn State Library for this task if you need help.

  3. Next, populate your page in Canvas with information and images. The editor is pretty user friendly; post to Questions? if you have trouble. Please include links and citations to all the places where you found borrowed graphics and other information. Check out some of the papers on the Additional Resources page of this lesson (penultimate page) for more background on plate tectonics or to get some inspiration for this assignment. If your chosen scientist is still among the living, feel free to contact him/her. Former students have had some wonderful correspondences with the scientists they chose. Geoscientists are a friendly bunch.

Submitting your work

This lesson is two weeks in length. You need to complete your Web page by the last day of this first week of this lesson (see the Overview page for the date). That will enable us to spend the next week (Week 2 of this lesson) reflecting, reviewing, and revising.

Grading criteria

Your grade for this activity will be based on both the quality of your site, as well as on your thoughtfulness during the discussion portion of this lesson.