To teach students a principle that applies to sinkhole formation. To illustrate how an understanding of geologic processes is relevant in the real world. This case is designed to be an independent assignment that follows a lecture period during which I present some background information on sinkholes. The goal of the lecture is to give students a description of sinkholes and a basic understanding of how they form without explaining what I want them to learn from doing the sinkhole exercise. Students are assigned randomly to small groups at the beginning of the course and remain in those groups throughout the semester.
Group work takes place both inside and outside of the classroom.
We discuss their answers as a large group during the following class period. Some instructors might like to give their students a follow-up assignment that would allow them to test their hypotheses of why sinkholes form preferentially during the spring near Orlando. For additional information, the average monthly rainfall data for the Orlando Airport is plotted in Figure 3 below. May. To a lesser extent, July. Students in Wisconsin, where I teach, associate April and May with the rainy season and therefore often hypothesize that sinkhole development is enhanced by above-average rainfall, causing subsurface cavities to enlarge.