This activity provides a brief introduction to GPS and provides a student activity to practice creating and reading time series plots with simplified GPS data. Students graph how a tectonic plate (and the GPS unit attached to it) has moved over a five year time period by moving a GPS model across a North-East coordinate graph.

The following files are needed to complete this activity:

• Introduction to Reading GPS Time Series Plots (v. May 2011) [pptx, 15mb] [[PDF, 5mb]
  This presentation provides a brief overview of how GPS can be used to study plate motion, earthquakes, and seismic waves using the Mw=9.0 Tohoku, Japan Earthquake as an example; a brief summary of the development of thought about the shape of the Earth and Geodesy, how GPS works, and step by step how to read GPS time series plots, a brief assessment of learning, and practice with a simple dataset with Iceland as an example.
• Student Worksheet Reading Time Series Plots (v. May 2011) [pdf] [doc] ; in Spanish v. 2008 [pdf] [doc]
• Tenths of a Year to Months of a Year Scale
• Reading Time Series Plots Reference Key [pdf] ; in Spanish [pdf]
• Teacher Guide and Answer Key (v. May 2011) [pdf] ; [doc]

After this activity, students explore authentic GPS data; see:
Exploring Plate Motion and Deformation in California Using GPS Time Series Plots
Using GPS data to visualize plate tectonics in the Pacific Northwest
Real GPS Data: Surprising Discoveries in Iceland

Additional Resources:

The activity: Introduction to Reading Time Series Plots and activity: Exploring Plate Motion and Deformation in California Using GPS Time Series Plots have been tied together in a single Lesson Plan (v.June 2008) [materials] This lesson plan also includes an answer key.

Draft Versions of this activity