Russell O. Colson
 Professor of Geology, Emeritus
Department of Anthropology and Earth Science
 Minnesota State University Moorhead

Back to Russ Colson Author Page

Courses taught during my tenure at MSUM:
     I have now retired from MSUM, and no longer offer most of the courses below, although I continue to offer the online courses as requested, and offer a number of workshop for MN earth science teachers.

I tried to provide challenges for students at a variety of difficulty levels  to stretch all students out of their comfort zone and still be fun.  I also wanted my classes to give students, not just "facts" about geology but to give them an understanding of how a geologist reasons and how we read the stories written in the fabric of creation.

I developed and taught the following in-person classes:

  • Geos 102 Geology in the National Parks with 2-day field trip

  • Geos 110L Physical Geography Lab

  • Geos 115 Physical Geology and 115L, Physical Geology Lab and field trips

  • Geos 116 Historical Geology, with lab and 2-day field trip

  • Geos 170 Earth Science Today with labs and field trips

  • Geos 302 Mineralogy and Petrology with labs

  • Geos 302b Mineralogy with labs

  • Geos 303 Petrology with labs and 2-day field trip

  • Hon 314 Space, Time, and Change: revolutions in our self perception. This was a course for honors students examinning the scientific bases for three big discoveries of the 1800s, space is big, time is long, and everything changes, within a religious and cultural context

  • Geos 330 Elementary Meteorology with labs and writing intensive

  • Geos 340 Economic and Environmental Geology, with labs and 2-day field trip

  • Geos 360 Planetary Science with labs

  • Geos 370 Structural Geology and Mapping, with labs and 2-day field trip

  • Geos 415 Reading Geochemical Fingerprints with problem sets and labs

  • Geos 480 Senior Seminar

    • I developed, produced, wrote, offered, and continue to offer the following online self-study courses. The materials for these courses are available online for free starting at (EarthSci4Teachers)

  • Geos 209L Problems in Introductory Geology

  • Geos 211L Problems in Water Land and People

  • Geos 304L Problems in Mineralogy and Petrology

  • Geos 361L Problems in Planetary Science

  • Geos 417L Problems in Geochemistry

  • Geos 499/599 Earth Science Essentials (for in-service science teachers)

  • Geos 499/599 Earth Science Extras (for in-service science teachers)

    • Back to Russ Colson Author Page

    MSUM Anthropology and Earth Science Home Page
    .

    last update: 11/27/2023