World Map of Plate Boundaries part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Bonnie Magura (Portland Public Schools) and Chris Hedeen (Oregon City High School)
The plate tectonics mapping activity allows students to easily begin to identify basic tectonic processes on a global scale. As students become aware of plate movements, they begin to identify patterns that set the stage for deeper understanding of a very complex topic. The activity uses a simple "Where's Waldo" approach to identify tectonic symbols on a laminated World Plate Tectonic map.

Human Wave: Modeling P and S Waves part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) and ShakeAlert
Lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, learners are the medium that P and S waves travel through in this simple, but effective demonstration. Once "performed", the principles of P and S waves will not be easily forgotten. This demonstration explores two of the four main ways energy propagates from the hypocenter of an earthquake as P and S seismic waves. The physical nature of the Human Wave demonstration makes it a highly engaging kinesthetic learning activity that helps students grasp, internalize and retain abstract information.

Earthquake Machine part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) and ShakeAlert
In this activity, learners work collaboratively in small groups to explore the earthquake cycle by using a physical model. Attention is captured through several short video clips illustrating the awe-inspiring power of ground shaking resulting from earthquakes. To make students' prior knowledge explicit and activate their thinking about the topic of earthquakes, each student writes their definition of an earthquake on a sticky note. Next, through a collaborative process, small groups of students combine their individual definitions to create a consensus definition for an earthquake.

Evolution of Extinct Animals part of Teaching Activities
Phil Novack-Gottshall, Benedictine University
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 ...

Grand Canyon Cross Section Lab part of GET Spatial Learning:Teaching Activities
Doug Lombardi, University of Maryland-College Park
× Students examine a geologic map of the Grand Canyon and two imaginary vertical cores through canyon stratigraphy. They use these data to construct a cross-section across the canyon and to answer questions ...

Unit 5: The Sixth Extinction part of Changing Biosphere
Camille Holmgren, SUNY Buffalo State University
In this unit, students will prepare by reading a couple of articles describing the causes and rates of mass extinctions, including the current "Sixth Extinction," and why conservation is important to ...

Unit 1: Introduction to the Geologic Timeline & Mass Extinctions part of Changing Biosphere
Rebecca Teed, Wright State University-Main Campus
In this unit, students will identify mass extinctions as paleontologists have done and recognize and understand the "pull of the recent," that is, the human tendency to know more about events closer to ...

Unit 2: Causes of Mass Extinction part of Changing Biosphere
Rebecca Teed, Wright State University-Main Campus
During Unit 2, students will learn about the causes of two past mass extinctions and discuss the controversies surrounding these causes and the evidence upon which the theories in the debates are based. Before ...

Unit 4: Impacts of Environmental Change on Organisms: Horses part of Changing Biosphere
Camille Holmgren, SUNY Buffalo State University
In this unit, students will gain a deep-time perspective on how life evolves on a dynamic planet. They will use the Equidae (horse family) as a case study to examine the relationship among climate, biomes, and ...

Unit 2: Water Footprints part of Water, Agriculture, Sustainability
Robert Turner, University of Washington-Bothell Campus
Unit 2 opens a window into water accounting and reveals intensive water use that few people think about. How much water goes into common commodities? Have you considered how much water it takes to support our ...