Lab Policies

Benjamin Daniels

Welcome GEOL 1101 students!

This is your laboratory manual for GEOL 1101 – The Dynamic Earth at Mount Royal University. We are excited to share our passion for geology with you, and the best way to do that is through practical, hands-on learning. We hope this new educational resource will help you deepen your understanding of the world around you this semester, and for years to come!

Attendance

It is imperative that you complete all lab activities to succeed in this course. The only way to effectively learn the material is to practice and ask questions during the lab. Your participation in lab activities is vital for your learning, and does count toward your final grade. If you fail to complete the lab activities due to illness or other exceptional circumstance that lasts for more than one week, please contact your lab instructor as soon as possible and arrange to provide them with any supporting documentation required.

After the week has passed, it is no longer possible to make up the missed lab work. If you have not contacted your lab instructor to request an excused absence as outlined above then you will receive a zero for any graded work assigned that week.

Materials Required and Lab Safety

It is recommended that you print out the entire manual. You will also require a lab kit consisting of a mineral ID kit, Mineral Kits 1 and 2, and Rock Kits 1 and 2. This lab kit is supplied by MRU, and will be made available to you during your lab time. You are responsible for acquiring other lab materials including: a pencil, an eraser, coloured pencils, tracing paper, a ruler, a protractor, and a calculator. You will also need to purchase a pair of standard lab safety glasses that have wrap-around protection to prevent any dilute hydrochloric acid from splashing into your eyes. These are available from any hardware store, and from the MRU Bookstore.

While you are completing lab activities, it is your responsibility to ensure that you work safely and to ask your lab instructor for guidance or clarification if you have a safety concern. There is a lab safety video that outlines the safety guidelines for testing hardness and using dilute hydrochloric acid (HCl) available on Blackboard. Watch this video and then take the mandatory Lab Safety Quiz on Blackboard before you use any of the tools in your mineral ID kit.

Grading

Your work in the GEOL 1101 lab will account for 40% of your overall grade in the course.

Item

Course Value

Lab quizzes (5 x 2% each)

10%

Lab tests (2 x 5% each)

10%

Final project

10%

Participation and attendance

10%

Total proportion of final grade in GEOL 1101

40%

Tips for Success

Complete the practice questions as you read through each background chapter. These are a great way to prepare for your lab and also make excellent study tools!
Complete all lab activities and record your answers to the lab exercises.
Contact your lab instructor whenever you have questions about the lab material.
Review the relevant lab material before each quiz or test.
The hands-on skills in this course, like rock and mineral identification, require practice and repetition to learn effectively. Budget enough time to practice these skills.

Academic Integrity

You as a student, and we as faculty have a collective commitment to upholding academic integrity at MRU. Academic integrity is guided by a shared belief in the fundamental values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility in all academic work. To maintain academic integrity in this course, all quizzes and tests must be completed independently, and all work submitted for grading must be your own original work.

Geology is a collaborative science, so we expect you to work together during the lab. However, your work must abide by the MRU Student Code of Conduct. Be honest and ask yourself “if I redid the lab alone, could I do it?”. If the answer is no, then spend more time reviewing the material by yourself to ensure that you are prepared for the lab quizzes and tests that you will write independently.

Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct consists of misrepresentation by deception or by other fraudulent means and can result in serious consequences, e.g., the grade of zero on an assignment, loss of credit with a notation on your transcript, and/or suspension or expulsion from the university. It is your responsibility to understand what constitutes academic misconduct and how to be proactive in avoiding it. For information on the various kinds of academic dishonesty please refer to the MRU Student Code of Conduct.

In this course, students who assist another to commit academic misconduct, by making their answers, quizzes, tests, or other materials available to others, will face the same consequences as those who do the actual copying. It is in your own personal interest to ensure that no one else has access to your work.

Note: Posting course materials for GEOL 1101 online is an example of a seemingly-innocuous act that is in fact academic misconduct.

Plagiarism is also a form of academic misconduct. Plagiarism includes the submission of work that is not your own or the submission of work with misleading or erroneous references. It is highly recommended that you consult the Avoiding Plagiarism document prepared by the MRU Library to ensure you understand how to avoid plagiarizing materials.