Open Educational Resources and Geology

An Introduction to Geology (Johnson, et al., 2019) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)  
A wide-ranging and thorough Physical Geology Textbook. It includes a multitude of images and linked videos. Short comprehension-check quizzes are included. This text addresses topics to a slightly higher degree of complexity than some other textbooks. Example field sites are from domestic and international locations, but the focus is on the American Southwest.

Physical Geology – 2e (Earle, 2019) – LibreTexts (CC BY 4.0)
A comprehensive Physical Geology textbook created in British Columbia. The chapters are well-organized and include helpful comprehension-check questions. The authors have created many useful diagrams and imported others. Many original photographs and case studies from the Pacific Northwest are included. This text is less exhaustive than others but is well-focused and sufficient for introductory Physical Geology.

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.

The content is all “open source” material – derived or modified from available on federal, state, and local government websites and publications. Much of the content (text, graphics, and photographs) is donated from GeologyCafe.com, a website dedicated to supporting public earth science education.
A web-based, comprehensive physical geology textbook with many images. This textbook is created by California Community College faculty and is aligned with C-ID topics and course objectives. Quizzes are included at the end of each chapter.

This courseware includes resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations. Click the words “Licenses and Attributions” at the bottom of each page for copyright and licensing information specific to the material on that page.
This textbook covers most of the content required for Physical Geology. Topics receive a relatively lighter treatment compared to other textbooks. The textbook can be downloaded as a Canvas course that will include assignments and question banks.

This comprehensive Physical Geology Textbook is a major adaptation of Earle’s Physical Geology Textbook. The order of topics is changed and topics are significantly edited and expanded. The topics included in this book are sufficient to meet C-ID topics and course objectives.

This textbook contains many helpful online laboratory exercises. The author states that is intended to supplement, not replace, on-ground lab experiences. 

This robust resource is a complete Physical Geology lab manual created by California Community College Instructors. It is full of California-specific examples, is extremely well-organized, and contains useful problem sets.  It is also well-aligned with the C-ID Lab Activities and objectives.

Laboratory Manual for Introductory Geology (Deline et al., 2019) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
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.

This useful resource covers many, or perhaps all, of the topics an instructor might cover in a Historical Geology Lecture Class. It doesn’t read like a typical textbook. Instead, it provides an excellent selection of modular chapters and other resources. The “Other Resources” are especially helpful. They include case studies, lab skills activities, virtual field experiences, and virtual sample sets.

A well-organized laboratory manual with many interesting activities for students to learn from. The activities correlate strongly with the C-ID description of Historical Geology Laboratory, so they should meet most college’s SLO’s. In some cases, the activities require the instructor to provide samples (e.g. sedimentary structures and fossils). In some cases, it will be necessary to view the activities in color, either by printing in color or by viewing on a device.

This textbook, written by California Community College Instructors, comprehensively covers the course topics outlined for Earth Science.

The Physical Environment: An OER Geography Textbook (Ritter, 2020) – LibreTexts (CC BY-SA 4.0)
This textbook includes text, images, videos, and quizzes to support all the content and nearly all of the objectives outlined in the C-ID Descriptor for physical geography. An instructor using this textbook would most likely have to provide additional supplementary materials related to earth history and might have to provide some additional astronomy materials.

Physical Geography Lab Manual (Ray et al., 2020) (CC BY-NC 4.0) – Google Docs
Manual for Physical Geography, Lab Course – Canvas Commons
Manual for Physical Geography, Lab Course – Word Doc

This peer-reviewed lab manual includes twenty lab exercises designed for California community college students.

Environmental Geology – LibreTexts (Earle, 2021)
This clearly organized and presented textbook features many informative diagrams and photographs and includes chapter review questions. It covers most of the C-ID required topics for Environmental Geology. The topics not included in the book, such as formation of the Earth, are easily found in other OER resources. Overall, this book could be used as a nearly stand-alone resource for California Community College Environmental Geology course.

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.

This textbook includes text, photographs, videos, diagrams, and tables that support virtually all of the content and objectives listed in the C-ID course content and objectives. The text is particularly well-provisioned with photographs. The text does not include the lab activities listed in the C-ID descriptor. An instructor would have to supplement these.