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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Northwestern Indiana Landscape Unit
Moriah Weitman, University of Maine
In this lesson, students will investigate the question, what is the effect of climate on glacial landscape processes? Students will be guided through understanding how climate factors, such as temperature and ...

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 ...

Radiocarbon dating project
Mark Schmitz, Boise State University
This is an example of an activity used in a Quaternary Geochronology course, in which a small group of students (3-4) is tasked with transforming a set of activity measurements into radiocarbon ages and calibrated ...

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.

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 ...