Finding OERs by Discipline

This classic USGS short text provides an extremely useful overview of plate tectonics. Many other textbooks (traditional and OER) appear to borrow their plate tectonics chapters from this resource.

Although not a comprehensive textbook, this resource provides a significant amount of material that could be very helpful in a California Geology course. The resource includes sections on the rocks, fossils, topography, energy, and mineral resources present in various physiographic regions and also includes virtual field experiences and virtual labs.

The year is 2050 and your once-idyllic beachfront vacation home is now flooded up to the second story. The crab your family has enjoyed every Christmas for as long as you can remember has now become an endangered species. The oceans have changed. In Earth 540, Oceanography for Educators, we explore the mechanisms that lead to sea level rise and ocean acidification. We strive to understand how natural processes such as ocean currents, the gulf-stream, tides, plate tectonics, and the Coriolis Effect, affect our oceans and ocean basins

This text prepares students by laying a solid foundation in the application of physical, chemical, and mathematical principles to a broad range of atmospheric phenomena. It gives non-Meteorology students a comprehensive understanding of atmospheric science and quantitative analytical tools to apply atmospheric science to their own disciplines. Students are introduced to fundamental concepts and applications of atmospheric thermodynamics, radiative transfer, atmospheric chemistry, cloud microphysics, atmospheric dynamics, and the atmospheric boundary layer.

When you ask the question “What is geology?” most people will initially respond that it is the study of rocks. This is true, but geology is also so much more than that. The truth is that geology is an intricate part of your everyday life.

This book describes how Earth's climate is changing, how it has been changing in the recent geological past and how it may change in the future. It covers the physical sciences that build the foundations of our current understanding of global climate change such as radiation, Earth's energy balance, the greenhouse effect and the carbon cycle. Both natural and human causes for climate change are discussed.

This text is designed to give you a comprehensive introduction to Geology at no or very nominal cost. It contains both written and graphic text material, intra-text links to other internal material which may aid in understanding topics and concepts, intra-text links to the appendices and glossary for tables and definitions of words, and extra-text links to videos and web material that clarifies and augments topics and concepts. Like any new or scientific subject, Geology has its own vocabulary for geological concepts. For you to converse effectively with this text and colleagues in this earth science course, you will use the language of geology, so comprehending these terms is important.

Introduction to Oceanography is a textbook appropriate to an introductory-level university course in oceanography. The book covers the fundamental geological, chemical, physical and biological processes in the ocean, with an emphasis on the North Atlantic region.

Minerals are our planet. They form the Earth and the bedrock that we live on, making up all of Earth’s rocks and sediments, and they are important components in soils. So, they literally are the foundations for our lives. Perhaps because they are ubiquitous, most people don’t even notice them or consider that all rock is made of minerals.

Oceanography is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean and covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries.

Physical Geology is a comprehensive introductory text on the physical aspects of geology, including rocks and minerals, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciation, groundwater, streams, coasts, mass wasting, climate change, planetary geology and much more. It has a strong emphasis on examples from western Canada, especially British Columbia, and also includes a chapter devoted to the geological history of western Canada. The book is a collaboration of faculty from Earth Science departments at Universities and Colleges across British Columbia and elsewhere.

This useful resource is a complete Physical Geology lab manual created by instructors at University of West Georgia. The manual includes a significant amount of helpful instructional material along with many thoughtful lab activities. A California Community College Instructor might face some obstacles: in some cases the text needs edits; in many cases the examples are very specific to the southeastern US; in other cases the activities rely on specific maps or other lab materials that are not included. Still, there is a lot of useful stuff in here.

There are lab exercises, assignments, teaching resources, learning communities, peer mentoring networks and more.

The Soils Laboratory Manual, K-State Edition is designed for students in undergraduate, introductory soil science courses. The manual highlights the multidisciplinary aspects of soil science with laboratories focused on soil formation, classification, and mapping; soil physics, soil biology; soil chemistry; and soil fertility and management.