This paper explores the use of a new pedagogy, the rock art stability index (RASI), to engender deeper understanding of weathering science concepts by students. Owing to its dynamic nature, RASI represents a quintessential actor network for weathering science, because it links task in the landscape with an active material practice and an alternative materialistic world-view recently called for in positivistic science, to create place. Using concept maps as an assessment tool, 571 college undergraduate students and 13 junior high school integrated science students (ages 12—13) were evaluated for increased learning potential between pre- and post-field experiences. Further, this article demonstrates that when students use RASI to learn the fundamental complex science of weathering they make in-depth connections between weathering form and process not achieved through traditional, positivistic weathering pedagogy. We argue that RASI draws upon inherent actor networks which allow students to link weathering form and process to an animate conceptualization of landscape. Conceptualizing landscape as sentient actor networks removes weathering science disciplinary connections and their inherent pedagogic practices. Our focus in this paper is not to challenge weathering ontology and epistemology, but rather to argue that there is a need for a pedagogical paradigm shift in weathering science.

Failaka Island, located in the far east of Kuwait Bay about 20 km from the State of Kuwait’s coast, represents a focal point for regional geography and history, including natural wonders and archaeological sites dating to the Bronze, Iron, Hellenistic, Christian and Islamic periods. According to environmental data and in coordination with local authorities to develop an urban plan, the island is set to become the first tourist destination for the State of Kuwait. To achieve the Vision of Kuwait 2035, one of the planning objectives centers on Urban Planning for the Establishment of Environmental Cities that Achieve (UPEECA) environmental sustainability criteria. The article then, aims to propose the environmental urban plan for Failaka Island. Based around Environmental Analytical Hierarchical Processes (EAHP) and using the Field Calculator and ModelBuilder functions in ArcGIS, this research centers on the feasibility of carrying out an urban plan using suitability modeling that incorporates 4 factors and 13 criteria covering the island’s ecological and human composition. This study utilizes both remote sensing (Unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs for 3D imaging) and field study (ground truthing) to identify changes in land use and land cover—such as using sample analysis of the historical sites and soils for tracing evidence and creating/updating a soil map—and create the first geographic information systems (GIS) database for the island that can lead capable of generating a suitability model.

The rock weathering literature contains the hypothesis that case hardening exemplifies equifinality, where the same end state can be reached by many potential processes in an open system. We present analytical data from six different sites in the western USA to assess the hypothesis of equifinality. Case hardening can be produced on: (1) sandstone in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, from the addition of silica glaze, rock varnish and heavy-metal skins; (2) sandstone in Whoopup Canyon, Wyoming, from silica glaze that formed originally inside subsurface joints combined with externally applied iron film, silica glaze, and rock varnish; (3) welded tuff in Death Valley, California, from the accumulation of rock varnish and heavy metal skins of Mn and Fe; (4) sandstone in Sedona, Arizona, from the protective effects of rock varnish accretion and heavy metal skins of Mn and Fe; (5) basalt on the Big Island, Hawai'i, from the accumulation of silica glaze inside vesicles; and (6) sandstone at Point Reyes, California, from a lithobiont mat of fungi and lichen. Each developed the general form of a case-hardened shell, protecting the surface from erosion. In accordance with the hypothesis of equifinality, the processes that led to similar appearance differ.