Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

This class is designed to be active and fun, built around hands-on labs, group projects, and real-world examples. We will model eruptions, map hazards, track earthquakes, and work together to understand how volcanoes and earthquakes shape our world. Regular participation matters since labs and group work are where much of the learning happens.

There is no textbook to buy. All readings are free and linked through open resources. Bring your curiosity, your questions, and be ready to share ideas. The course ends with a group volcano project where you will get to explore a volcanic system in depth and present what you discover. Weekly topics include:

Week 1 – How does Earth work 
Week 2 – Earth’s layers and plate tectonics, shadow zones and Earth’s interior
Week 3 – Faults and earthquakes, how and why the ground shakes
Week 4 – Locating earthquakes, magnitudes, and epicenters
Week 5 – Subduction zones and Cascadia, our local hazards
Week 6 – Earthquake hazards, hazard maps, group project start
Week 7 – Melting rocks, magma, and how igneous rocks form
Week 8 – Types of volcanoes, eruption styles, volcanic hazards, viscosity experiments
Week 9 – Hazards and recurrence intervals, predicting events and risk
Week 10 – Living with volcanoes and earthquakes

All needed technology is provided free through PCC, including Google Drive for group work, calculators, and access to computers and software in campus labs. Colored pencils and rulers are useful for mapping, but otherwise everything you need is accessible without cost.