Teaching Activities

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

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High School (9-12)
Geoscience > Geology > Geophysics
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Results 1 - 10 of 20 matches

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

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

Earthquake Intensity part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Jennifer Pickering
Introductory lesson that compares ShakeMaps between earthquakes in the same location but different magnitudes, and earthquakes of the same magnitude but different depths, to acquaint learners to the fundamental controls on intensity of shaking felt during an event: magnitude and distance from the earthquake source.

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

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

Pasta Quake: Exploring Earthquake Magnitude part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Paul Doherty (Exploratorium Teacher Institute) and Roger Groom (Mt Tabor Middle School) with improvements by ShakeAlert
This short activity provides an intuitive introduction to earthquake magnitude using an everyday item--spaghetti. Learners are introduced to the earthquake magnitude scale by breaking different amounts of uncooked noodles. Visual scale of the pasta emphasizes the relative differences between magnitudes with each whole step in magnitude. For older students, the demonstration helps students understand why seismologists use the nonlinear logarithmic scale to best graph the huge range of quantities.

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

SeismicWaves Viewer & SeismicEruption Software part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Roger Groom, Mt Tabor Middle School
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.

Grade Level: 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, Geoscience, Geology:Geophysics:Seismology, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Volcanism
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review

Science with Flubber: Glacial Isostasy part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
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.

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

Understanding the Age of the Ocean Floor part of IODP School of Rock 2020:Teaching Activities
Mike Passow, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
In part 1, Students will use data collected during DSDP Leg 3 to plot the age of the sea floor at distances away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In part 2, they learn about paleomagnetic evidence and learn about the ...

Grade Level: High School (9-12), Middle (6-8)
Resource Type: Activities: Activities:Classroom Activity, Project, Problem Set
Subject: Geoscience:Geology:Tectonics, Geoscience:Oceanography:Physical , Geoscience:Geology:Geophysics, Geoscience:Oceanography:Marine Geology and Geophysics
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review

Earthquake Early Warning Demonstration part of Geodesy:Activities
Shelley E Olds, EarthScope Consortium
This hands-on demonstration illustrates how GPS instruments can be used in earthquake early warning systems to alert people of impending shaking. The same principles can be applied to other types of early warning systems (such as tsunami) or to early warning systems using a different type of geophysical sensor (such as a seismometer instead of a GPS).This demo is essentially a game that works best with a large audience (ideally over 30 people) in an auditorium. A few people are selected to be either surgeons, GPS stations, or a warning siren, with everyone else forming an earthquake "wave."

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

Measure a Changing Volcano part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Resources
EarthScope Consortium
This hands-on demonstration illustrates how GPS can be used to measure the inflation and deflation of a volcano. Volcanoes may inflate when magma rises closer to the surface and deflate when the pressure dissipates or after an eruption.

Grade Level: General Public, Informal, Middle (6-8), High School (9-12), Intermediate (3-5)
Resource Type: Activities: Audio/Visual:Animations/Video, Activities:Classroom Activity:Short Activity:Demonstration
Subject: Geoscience, Geology:Geophysics:Geodesy, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards:Mass Wasting, Volcanism, Environmental Science:Natural Hazards
Activity Review: Passed Peer Review