Structure of the Earth

Important Ideas

1. How are the layers of the Earth's interior differentiated?
2. How does the composition of each layer
3. How does activity taking place in the interior affect the activity and physical nature of the Earth's surface?

Independent and Dependent Variables (Answers)

 

1.  A group of college students were given a short course in speed-reading. The instructor was curious if a monetary incentive would influence performance on a reading test taken at the end of the course.  Half the students were offered $5 for obtaining a certain level of performance on the test, the other half were not offered money. 

 

Independent variable:  Monetary incentive ($5 or no money)

 

Dependent variable:  Performance on reading test

 

Experimental group:  $5 group (receive monetary incentive)

 

Control group:  $0 group (no monetary incentive)

2.  A social psychologist thinks that people are more likely to conform to a large crowd than to a single person.  To test this hypothesis, the social psychologist had either one person or five persons stand on a busy walking path on campus and look up.  The psychologist stood nearby and counted the number of people passing by who also looked up.

 

Independent variable:  Size of group (5 people or 1 person)

 

Dependent variable:  Conformity (measured by number of people looking up)

 

Experimental group:  People passing 5 person group

 

Control group:  People passing single person.  (This group gets “less” of the independent variable)

 

 

3.  To test a new voice feature in a cockpit design a flight simulator was used.  The simulator was programmed to give visual readings of flight information, or to give visual and auditory (voice) readings of flight information.  All test pilots were put through a simulated emergency landing procedure, but were randomly assigned to the visual, or visual and auditory conditions.  Flight experts rated each pilot’s performance in the simulator on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 10 (excellent).

 

Independent variable:  Presence or absence of auditory (voice) readings.  (All pilots received visual readings, so that is a constant variable.)

 

Dependent variable:  Ratings of pilots’ performance

 

Experimental group:  Pilots in auditory readings condition (visual + auditory)

 

Control group:  Pilots in visual reading only condition (no auditory)

Independent and Dependent Variables

1.  A group of college students were given a short course in speed-reading. The instructor was curious if a monetary incentive would influence performance on a reading test taken at the end of the course.  Half the students were offered $5 for obtaining a certain level of performance on the test, the other half were not offered money. Based on the situation presented, identify the:

Independent variable:

Dependent variable:

Experimental group:

Control group:

2.  A social psychologist thinks that people are more likely to conform to a large crowd than to a single person.  To test this hypothesis, the social psychologist had either one person or five persons stand on a busy walking path on campus and look up.  The psychologist stood nearby and counted the number of people passing by who also looked up.

Independent variable:

Dependent variable:

Experimental group:

Control group:

3.  To test a new voice feature in a cockpit design a flight simulator was used.  The simulator was programmed to give visual readings of flight information, or to give visual and auditory (voice) readings of flight information.  All test pilots were put through a simulated emergency landing procedure, but were randomly assigned to the visual, or visual and auditory conditions.  Flight experts rated each pilot’s performance in the simulator on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 10 (excellent).

 Independent variable:

Dependent variable:

Experimental group:

Control group:

Introduction to Latitude and Longitude

Aim: Where am I?

Density

Density -  a measure of the compactness of a substance, expressed as its mass per unit volume.

Density = mass (g) / volume (mL)

 

Mass - a measure of how much matter is in an object.

Volume - the amount of space occupied by a three-dimensional object or region of space.

 

Latitude and Longitude: Time Zones

 

Click me: Why do we have different time zones? 

Topographic Maps

Aim: How do we map the surface of the Earth?

Notes Given to Students: Guided Notes: Topographic Maps

Drawing Contours Practice: Drawing Contour Lines 

Calculating Gradient Practice: Calculating Gradients 

Topographic Maps 

maps showing the relief features of the earth's 

surface, usually by means of contour lines to show changes in elevation.

The picture above is an example of a field map. In this example, the numbers on the map represent the concentration of gasoline found at that location. So the map simply shows how much of something (in this case gasoline) is found at many locations.

Isolines are lines that are drawn on a field map to connect all of the points on that map that have the same value.

Contour Line -

 a line joining points of equal elevation on a surface.

Close line =Steep Slope

Contour lines bend upstream when crossing a river.

A contour interval is the difference in elevation between two contour lines that are side by side.

Highest possible elevation of a hill

Depressions are shown by small marks pointing inward off the contour line.

Gradient