Physical geography lab exercises tend to be crafted for internal institutional use only. In light of the need to have online laboratory material for remote instruction, a group of geography instructors from across British Columbia (BC), Canada came together for this collaborative project with the goal of producing a cross-institutional open education resource (OER) laboratory manual for first-year post-secondary physical geography courses. The lab manual consists of 22 labs that cover an introduction to physical geography, weather and climate, biogeography, map and geospatial skills, hydrology, geomorphology, and landform identification. The majority of the labs have a BC focus; however, they are useable across Canada and further abroad. The majority of the labs have been developed so that they can be done in any order to increase instructor flexibility and promote adaptability to differing course structures and durations. Many of the labs have students using live data, or built-in flexibility with datasets for instructors in order to prevent the lab exercises becoming static over time. The lab manual is licenced under creative commons (refer to licensing information) so that the lab modules can be modified as needed by instructors to meet the learning outcomes of their students.

The first edition of this lab manual is intended as a beta test of the lab manual for the 2020/21 academic year, and subsequent refinement and production of the second edition will occur in the summer of 2021.

Update: This lab manual is now on its second edition.  You can access the second edition of Laboratory Manual for Introduction to Physical Geography, here

This lab manual is a cross-institutional project from British Columbia (BC), Canada that provides 22 labs to be implemented within first year post-secondary physical geography courses. The labs have been developed to be easily adapted for various course structures, durations, and differing laboratory learning objectives set out by instructors. Instructor notes are provided for each lab that outline the instructional intent of the lab author, along with some suggestions for modification. The lab manual is licenced under creative commons (refer to licensing information) so that the lab modules can be modified as needed. The first edition of this lab manual is intended as a beta test of the lab manual for the 2020/21 academic year. The second edition of this lab manual can be accessed at https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/geoglabmanualv2/