Classroom and Lab Activities

This collection of teaching materials allows for the sharing of ideas and activities within the community of geoscience teachers. Do you have a favorite teaching activity you'd like to share? Please help us expand this collection by contributing your own teaching materials.


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Modeling Rare Plant Distributions Using ArcGIS
Elizabeth Crook, University of California-Irvine
In this activity, students work with rare plant occurrence data from the Nature Reserve of Orange County, California to create species distribution maps in ArcGIS. Students are given shapefiles of species ...

Paleoclimate
Lenore Teevan, School of Innovation/Springfield City School District
This is a unit plan for project-based learning. Students will learn about paleoclimate proxies and their importance in understanding past climates. Students will focus on one region-specific aspect of paleoclimate ...

Voyage of the Arctic Project
Mallory Stone; Tamie Jovanelly, Berry College
This is a two-week long project geared towards middle school earth science teachers. This should be used towards the end of a school year when students have background knowledge on the following topics: plate ...

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Iceberg of Antarctica
Turtle Haste, Desert Ridge Middle School; Diane Nihart, Albuquerque Public Schools
After exploring the various hands-on, art, kinesthetic activities, and electronic resources after reading the book: Iceberg of Antarctica by Marlo Garnsworthy, students will develop, create, and produce their own ...

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FutureEarthCast: Voicemails from 50 years in the future
Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
Students are challenged to write a script and record a voicemail that is left 50 years in the future, describing changes that have taken place in the local environment based upon scientifically-accurate information ...

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Melting ice cubes
Mirjam Glessmer, University of Bergen
Explore how melting of ice cubes floating in water is influenced by the salinity of the water. Important oceanographic concepts like density and density driven currents are visualized and can be discussed on the ...

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Shoreline Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise
Shelley Whitmeyer, James Madison University
This assignment uses the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) developed by the USGS to evaluate multiple factors that affect shoreline stability.

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The Earth System during Interglacials
Max Berkelhammer, University of Illinois at Chicago
Students use a simplified climate model to understand how Earth's climate responds to greenhouse gas and orbital forcing with an emphasis on the last interglacial period. Students use the changes in climate to ...

Visual Story-Telling Project for Grades 6-12
Marian Grogan, TERC
Students will learn how to use a sequence of images to illustrate the difference between sequestering and emitting carbon.

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Natural Hazards & Climate Change Risks
Sarah Fortner, Carleton College
× Students characterize how climate change impacts natural hazards and pose research-based solutions to the county Emergency Management Agency. Presentations require the use of local data, created figures, ...