Earlham Physical Geology Web Assignment

Geosciences 211
Physical Geology

Physical Geology Website Assignment

Earlham College, Geosciences 211, Spring 2005

As one component of your lab grade in Geology 211, you are assigned the task of preparing a website for publication on the internet. The topic of your website is up to you but must be about a facet of physical geology that we will be discussing in this course. Your webpage may discuss a geological process, a geological phenomenon or a unique geological event. You may decide to discuss several related geological phenomenon. You are encouraged to use the resources available on the internet to create your project. (Use the web to build the web). When selecting information, it is your responsibility to identify sources that provide authoritative information on your specific geological interest.

When building your website, you may approach it in 2 different ways. First, you may use Dreamweaver MX to edit the template provided. Dreamweaver MX is available on computers within the Earlham Computing Lab system. A "cheat sheet" to ease your use of Dreamweaver is provided in a link to the left. If you are already versed in webpage design, you may prepare your webpage in any manner you please, using any software to which you have legal access. The end product must be a viable, readable and comprehensive survey of your topic.

Each of the sections below should consist of a few well-written paragraphs. You do not need to include each of the paragraph titles listed here and you can add new ones if you like. For all of the sources that you consult, provide in-text citations to the websites or primary reference materials that you used.

Introduction: Write a brief introduction describing the fundamental geology of your topic, noting such aspects as its geographic distribution, physical characteristics, geologic time range, evolutionary changes, etc. Please be brief, as you will be able to expand your explanations in following sections.

Geologic Processes: What is the dominant geologic process you are describing or that was significant in creating your phenomenon or event?

Products of the Geologic Process: How does this geologic procesoperate and what are the end results? How did this process generate your phenomenon or influence the outcome of your event?

Impacts: How is your geological process, phenomenon or event important at the scale of the entire earth and its history? At the scale of human civiliization? At the scale of you individual self? There is room for geopoetry in this section.

Literature Cited: Please provide a complete list of all the sources of information (website, print journals, books, etc.) you used to build your website. In order to be a new piece of work, you should include an array of different types of reference works. Please include at least 10 fully referenced sources for this assignment. Ten is a minimum; you may use more. Of these 10, please acquire at least 3 from the journal literature.

Links: You may provide a list of links to related websites that you do not specifically cite as references in your website. Realize, however, that because links are distractions, you don't want to place them in the middle of your text, but rather, to the side. (If you invite someone to go elsewhere while they are reading your stuff, they may never come back!)

Images and animations: One of the most powerful aspects of the internet is the ability to provide information alongside graphical images. Please feel free to include graphicsif you find images, sounds, etc. that will enhance the aesthetic impact and/or the information included on your website. Please make certain that you include source citations to these elements, as well.

Rules:

Your website must represent your own effort to gather information about your topic, to organize this information in a new way and to provide written explanation of your efforts. You may not simply lift words written by another and pass them off as your own original work.