This lesson teaches students how the motion of the Foucault pendulum proves that the earth is rotating. It will help to expand their concepts of motion, pendulums, and the gravitational force. Students will explore online resources to understand how Foucault used pendulums to show that the earth spins on its axis. Full description.

This site contains information about global climate models, which are now being enlarged to earth-system models in which the vegetation and ocean models are coupled to the climate models. These models are powerful tools for simulating past changes in climate, vegetation, and hydrological conditions. Seasonal insolation, carbon dioxide concentrations, and ice sheet size may have affected regional and ... Full description.

This lesson presents an historical example of how advances in science depend on advances in technology and vice versa. Students learn how the development and use of plastic is a result of the dynamic relationship between scientific and technological advances. In the next section, students will focus on the history of remote sensing by reading an online article that details its earliest uses. Students ... Full description.

This article, from Earth: Inside and Out, provides an overview of how geologists are using zircons to gain insight into the formation of our planet. It discusses how zircons are formed, their amazing durability, why they are the most reliable timepiece we have for looking at Earth's early history, the methods scientists use to study zircon, and what they have learned so far. In addition, there is ... Full description.

While on an internship in Washington State, a young naturalist from New York collected over 36 pounds of rocks. This site explains what he learned about their oxidation potential compared to similar rocks in New York. The narrative essay discusses how the research study was started while on an internship at the Marine Science Center in Washington State. It describes the regional metamorphism that ... Full description.

This site explains that predicting near-term global climate changes depends on how well the many processes that make up Earth's climate system are understood, how realistically these can be expressed in global change models, and how effectively the evolution of the system can be extracted with powerful supercomputers. One of the most important processes, one that is uniquely related to the Antarctic, ... Full description.

This site introduces students to Denton S. Ebel, Assistant Curator in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the American Museum of Natural History. It also shows behind-the-scenes photos of exhibit installations. An interview with Dr. Ebel answers the questions: What is a meteorite, What do meteorites tell us, and What will be new in the Ross Hall of Meteorites. In addition, Dr. Ebel describes ... Full description.

This site explains why three percent is a fundamental limit of X-ray detectors that use the conventional method of conversion to electric charges, and if a higher spectral resolution is required astronomers have to choose a detector that relies on a completely different principle, such as a microcalorimeter. As a result of its different approach, the microcalorimeter provides ten times better spectral ... Full description.

In this activity students experiment with the relationship between pressure, force, and area by calculating the force and pressure exerted by a LC-130 aircraft on the ice runway in McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. The LC-130 is a four-engine turboprop transport aircraft used by the United States Antarctic Program for cargo and personnel transport between New Zealand and McMurdo Station and between ... Full description.

This explanation describes the observatories we are currently using to study X-rays from space. Chandra, named for Nobel prize winner Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was launched from the space shuttle in 1999. Current X-ray observatories include The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), named after astronomer Bruno Rossi, and The Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA). The site also discusses ... Full description.