Observing, describing and measuring landscape attributes

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Description:

Students work in groups, examining three different representations of earth surface topography: a raised relief map, a topographic map, and stereo pairs of aerial photographs. The class comes together three times during the lab to report on each group's progress and results. This lab is intended to both clarify and build on students' previous ways of seeing the landscape, and also give them a chance to view the landscape with fresh eyes. One important element of this exercise is to practice separating observation from interpretation. Ideally, observations are objective facts, things other people would see if they followed the same procedure as you did. Interpretations are all the names, explanations and stories we develop as we attempt to make sense of our observations. Designed for a geomorphology course Has minimal/no quantitative component Addresses student fear of quantitative aspect and/or inadequate quantitative skills Addresses student misconceptions