Detecting Cascadia's changing shape with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Research-grade Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allow students to deduce that Earth's crust is changing shape in measurable ways. From data gathered by EarthScope's Plate Boundary Observatory, students discover that the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal British Columbia — the Cascadia region - are geologically active: tectonic plates move and collide; they shift and buckle; continental crust deforms; regions warp; rocks crumple, bend, and will break.

Evolution of Extinct Animals part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
A classroom/lab activity using the Paleobiology Database to produce and interpret diversity curves for various groups of important and popular extinct animals, such as trilobites, ammonites, and dinosaurs. Activity ...

Mapping Plate Tectonic Boundaries part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
In this classroom activity, students will work in groups to observe how patterns of topography, bathymetry, earthquake locations and depths, and the location of volcanoes vary across regions of the Earth. They will ...

Lesson 3: The Value of a Water Footprint (High School) part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Session 1 of this lesson begins with a quick activity to get students thinking about their direct and virtual water use. It introduces a few new ideas for virtual water use that may surprise students, including the ...

Dino Doom part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
This is an online learning experience that transports learners around the world to different locations related to the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event. Students will collect and analyze evidence to ...

Ocean currents and overflows part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
We are researchers and teachers in physical oceanography. Here we provide a lesson plan including materials, to explore ocean currents and specifically "underwater waterfalls", i.e., overflows in the ...

Exploring Earth Systems Science: The Interactive GLOBE Earth System Poster part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Teaching the Methods of Geoscience:Activities

Modeling the Seasons part of CLEAN Collection

Greenhouse Effect Lab part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
In this lab, students measure temperature changes inside soda bottles (one with CO2 added, the other with only air inside) as incandescent light is shined on them to model the Greenhouse Effect.

SeismicWaves Viewer & SeismicEruption Software part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
This activity includes both the Seismic Waves Viewer and the Seismic Eruption software to help learners better understand earthquakes, volcanoes, and the structure of the Earth. Seismic Waves is a browser-based tool to visualize the propagation of seismic waves from historic earthquakes through Earth's interior and around its surface. By carefully examining these seismic wave fronts and their propagation, the Seismic Waves tool illustrates how earthquakes can provide evidence that allows us to infer Earth's interior structure. Seismic Eruption shows seismicity (earthquakes) and volcanic activity in space and time from 1960 to present. When the program is running, the user sees lights, which represent earthquakes, flashing on the screen in speeded-up time. The user can control the speed of the action. In addition, the program can show seismicity under Earth's surface in three-dimensional and cross-sectional views. Earthquakes can be selected by magnitude and volcanic eruptions can be selected by volcanic explosivity index. In this way, large earthquakes and large eruptions can be selected to emphasize how different types of plate boundaries are characterized by different magnitudes of earthquakes (e.g. no major or great earthquakes occur on spreading ocean ridges). This lesson plan was developed by , Portland Oregon. Students investigate how seismic waves travel through Earth's internal layers and bounce and bend at internal boundaries between mantle, outer core, and inner core.

Paleoclimate part of IODP School of Rock 2020:Teaching Activities
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 ...

How Do Long and Short EM Waves Interact with the Earth's Atmosphere? part of CLEAN Collection

Geologic time scale hiking tour group project part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Students work in groups to develop content for am online hiking tour which is matched to the geologic time scale. This project has been used as a semester group work project in an introductory geologic history ...

Expedition Sediments: Mud's journey through the watershed part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Expedition Sediments is a game-in-a-lesson that allows students to explore the movement of sediments through watersheds by moving around the classroom. Through a fun game, this lesson explores how grains of ...

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Students analyze data to study the motion of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. From GPS data, students detect relative motion between the plates in the San Andreas fault zone--with and without earthquakes. To get to that discovery, they use physical models to understand the architecture of GPS, from satellites to sensitive stations on the ground. They learn to interpret time series data collected by stations (in the spreading regime of Iceland), to cast data as horizontal north-south and east-west vectors, and to add those vectors head-to-tail.Students then apply their skills and understanding to data in the context of the strike-slip fault zone of a transform plate boundary. They interpret time series plots from an earthquake in Parkfield, CA to calculate the resulting slip on the fault and (optionally) the earthquake's magnitude.

Science with Flubber: Glacial Isostasy part of Geodesy:Activities
Using two sets of flubber, one representing the Earth and one representing a glacier, demonstrate how the crust sinks and rebounds to the weight of a glacier, and how this motion can be measured using GPS.Flubber is a rubbery elastic substance, a non-Newtonian elasco-plastic fluid, that flows under gravity, but breaks when under high stress. Flubber is useful for demonstrating a wide range of Earth and glacier processes.

Data Puzzle: On a Budget part of CLEAN Collection

Scientific Notation: Practice Problems part of Math You Need - Majors:Scientific Notation
Solving Earth Science Problems with Scientific Notation × Introductory problems These problems cover the fundamentals of writing scientific notation and using it to understand the relative size of values and ...

Exponential Equations – Practice Problems part of Math You Need - Majors:Exponential Equations
Solving Earth Science Problems with Exponential Growth and Decay Exponential growth × Problem 1. Cyanobacteria, a group of photosynthetic bacteria, have a rapid growth rate that can lead to quickly ...

Data Puzzle: Not All Warming is Equal part of CLEAN Collection