Cupcake Geology: Interpreting Core Samples part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Bonnie Magura (Portland Public Schools)
This activity helps students understand how geoscientists study the Earth below our feet through drilling. Using a large straw as a "drill", students collect samples through different parts of the specially layered cupcake and keep a "log" of the drill core. By defining different colored cake and filling, they can reconstruct what the interior of the cupcake may look like. Students gain an appreciation for the challenges of determining a plausible geologic interpretation with limited data.

Investigating Factors That Affect Tsunami Inundation part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Bonnie Magura (Portland Public Schools), Roger Groom (Mt Tabor Middle School), and CEETEP (Cascadia EarthScope Earthquake and Tsunami Education Program)
Learners modify elements of a tsunami wave tank to investigate the affect that near-coast bathymetry (submarine topography) and coastal landforms have on how far a tsunami can travel inland. Damaging tsunami are most commonly produced by subduction zone earthquakes, such as those that occur in Alaska.

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.

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.

Ocean Acidification/Acid Rain Demonstration with a Soda Stream part of Teaching Activities
Sheldon Turner, Triton College
Using a SodaStream or other household carbonation appliance to teach about acidification and its effects on the environment.

Yes Sir, That's My Baby Glacier! part of Teaching Activities
Christopher Roemmele, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
Students will create their own glacier, and explore their effect on the land, modeling how they melt, how they move, and erode and deposit sediment. Students will be able to determine and describe isostatic ...

Microplastics and marine environment part of Teaching Activities
Giulia Realdon, University of Camerino, Italy
Marine micro-plastics are a relatively recent issue in research (Thompson et al. 2004), in the media and in education and, due to novelty and relevance, they are a suitable topic for addressing Ocean Literacy ...

Build Your Own Earth part of Teaching Activities
David Schultz, University of Manchester
Build Your Own Earth is a freely available web site to explore the factors that affect Earth's climate. Climate model simulations reveal the annual distributions of 50 different quantities. An accompanying ...

Paleobiology: Evolution and Extinction part of Teaching Activities
Carrie Schweitzer, Kent State University-Stark Campus
This activity introduces students to the impact of population size, population distribution, and environmental events on extinction processes.

Arctic Climate Curriculum, Activity 1: Exploring the Arctic part of Climate Change:Activities
Karin Kirk, Freelance Science Writer and Geoscientist; Anne Gold, University of Colorado at Boulder
This activity introduces students to the Arctic, including different definitions of the Arctic and exploration of the Arctic environment and Arctic people. Students set out on a virtual exploration of the geography ...