Teaching Activities

Earth education activities from across all of the sites within the Teach the Earth portal.

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Environmental Science

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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.

Grade Level: College Lower (13-14), High School (9-12), Intermediate (3-5), Middle (6-8)
Online Readiness: Designed for In-Person
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Outreach Activity, Classroom Activity, Lab Activity
Subject: Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Earthquakes, Geoscience, Geology:Tectonics
Activity Review: Peer Reviewed as Exemplary
On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
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Deep Sea Microbes Jigsaw part of IODP School of Rock 2020:Teaching Activities
Beverly Owens, Cleveland Early College High School; Molly Ludwick, Kings Mountain Middle School
This activity will help students to explore characteristics of microbes that live in the deep sea. This activity can be conducted as a jigsaw or research project, and can be used with face-to-face, remote, and ...

Grade Level: High School (9-12), Middle (6-8)
Online Readiness: Online Ready
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Project:Independent Research, Activities:Classroom Activity:Jigsaw, Activities:Classroom Activity
Subject: Geoscience:Oceanography:Marine Resources, Environmental Science:Oceans and Coastal Resources, Biology:Microbiology, Biogeochemistry:Microbial Properties and Metabolism, Geoscience:Oceanography:Biological
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review

Understanding Earthquakes: Comparing seismograms part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Introductory lesson that contextualizes how multiple instruments provide a more complete picture on an event.

Grade Level: Intermediate (3-5), High School (9-12), Middle (6-8), College Lower (13-14)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Lab Activity, Classroom Activity
Subject: Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Earthquakes, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards, Geoscience, Geology:Geophysics:Seismology
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review

Frequency of Large Earthquakes part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Using the IRIS Earthquake Browser tool, students gather data to support a claim about how many large (Mw 8+) earthquakes will happen globally each year. This activity provides scaffolded experience downloading data and manipulating data within a spreadsheet.

Grade Level: College Lower (13-14), Middle (6-8), Intermediate (3-5), High School (9-12)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Classroom Activity, Lab Activity
Subject: Geoscience:Geology:Geophysics:Seismology, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards, Geoscience:Geology:Tectonics, Geoscience, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Earthquakes
Activity Review: Peer Reviewed as Exemplary
On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
Learn more about this review process.

Episodic tremor and slip: The Case of the Mystery Earthquakes | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
Earthquakes in western Washington and Oregon are to be expected—the region lies in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Offshore, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate subducts under the North American plate, from northern California to British Columbia. The region, however, also experiences exotic seismicity— Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS).In this lesson, your students study seismic and GPS data from the region to recognize a pattern in which unusual tremors--with no surface earthquakes--coincide with jumps of GPS stations. This is ETS. Students model ductile and brittle behavior of the crust with lasagna noodles to understand how properties of materials depend on physical conditions. Finally, they assemble their knowledge of the data and models into an understanding of ETS in subduction zones and its relevance to the millions of residents in Cascadia.

Grade Level: Middle (6-8), College Lower (13-14), High School (9-12)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Classroom Activity, Lab Activity, Activities
Subject: Geoscience:Geology:Geophysics:Geodesy, Seismology, Geoscience:Geology:Tectonics, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Earthquakes, Geoscience:Oceanography:Marine Hazards, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Coastal Hazards:Tsunami, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards
Activity Review: Peer Reviewed as Exemplary
On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
Learn more about this review process.

Reading an Earthquake Seismogram part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Introductory lesson that deconstructs the information that can be gleaned from a single seismogram.

Grade Level: College Lower (13-14), Middle (6-8), High School (9-12), Intermediate (3-5)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Classroom Activity, Lab Activity
Subject: Geoscience:Geology:Tectonics, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Earthquakes, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards, Geoscience:Geology:Geophysics:Seismology, Geoscience
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
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.

Grade Level: College Lower (13-14), High School (9-12), Middle (6-8)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities, Lab Activity, Classroom Activity
Subject: Geoscience, Geology:Tectonics, Geophysics:Geodesy, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards, Natural Hazards:Earthquakes
Activity Review: Peer Reviewed as Exemplary
On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
Learn more about this review process.

Getting Started with the ShakeNet Data Portal part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Teacher guide and tutorial for using the RaspberryShake ShakeNet data portal.

Grade Level: College Lower (13-14), Middle (6-8), Intermediate (3-5), High School (9-12)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Lab Activity, Classroom Activity
Subject: Geoscience, Geology:Geophysics:Seismology, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards, Natural Hazards:Earthquakes
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review

Student-Generated Sustainability Short Stories Anchored in Science and Information Literacies and the SDGs part of Teaching Activities
Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
To build and improve upon their science and information literacies, students create a collection of short non-fiction stories that connect to at least one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ...

Grade Level: College Upper (15-16), College Lower (13-14), Middle (6-8), High School (9-12)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Writing Assignment
Subject: Environmental Science:Sustainability
Activity Review: Peer Reviewed as Exemplary
On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Collection This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection.
Learn more about this review process.

Activity 1: Systems Thinking Vocabulary Introduction part of Teaching Activities
Cameron Weiner, Middlebury College
This 30 minute activity introduces systems and systems thinking vocabulary. The activity uses a bathroom sink to introduce simple systems vocabulary. At the end of the activity, students think about the importance ...

Grade Level: High School (9-12), Middle (6-8)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Classroom Activity
Subject: Environmental Science
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review