Welcome!

This lab manual is the product of the work of many people dedicated to teaching Earth science, and to making sure that students have high quality and affordable materials with which to learn. The contents are adapted from and build upon projects by three other groups (listed below), and incorporate countless other resources offered free of charge for just this purpose.

This version of the lab manual has been redesigned to address the challenges of learning online by modifying activities to be more learn-from-home friendly, building in interactive activities so there’s more to do than just reading, and taking into consideration that not everyone has the same internet access or technology to work with. It is nevertheless still a work in progress, and all three of these issues will be addressed in more detail in subsequent revisions.

This lab manual was developed to support the Earth Science 111 lab course at UBC’s Okanagan campus, and does incorporate activities that utilize a rock and mineral sample kit that is distributed to students. The relevant labs include a list of what rocks and minerals are present in the kit.

Attributions

Chapters 1 and 3-8 were adapted from the  Introductory Physical Geology Laboratory Manual – First Canadian Edition (v.3 – Jan 2020) by Joyce McBeth, Karla Panchuk, Tim Prokopiuk, Lyndsay Hauber, and Sean Lacey, developed from Laboratory Manual for Introductory Geology by Bradley Deline, Randa Harris, and Karen Tefend. These works carry a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Chapter 2 was adapted from Chapter 1 of The Story of Earth: An Observational Guide by Daniel Hauptvogel and Virginia Sisson, which has a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Attributions for individual chapters or pages can be found at the bottom of that page.