This identification key has been designed to assist teachers, students, or collectors in the identification of rocks. It consists of a series of "yes/no/then go to" questions that pertain to observations of structure, texture, color, hardness, and other properties of the specimen being examined. Full description.

In this activity, students will discover that minerals have specific characteristics that help to identify them. They will learn that minerals are formed by inorganic processes, are crystalline solids with an internal orderly arrangement of atoms, have specific chemical compositions, and have specific physical and chemical characteristics. They will also learn that minerals are commonly identified ... Full description.

By performing various activities to model the magnetic fields around the sun, students will gain an understanding of how the restructuring of these magnetic fields can cause a variety of seemingly unrelated shapes and phenomena. They will discover how changes in this magnetic field cause phenomena like coronal mass ejections, filaments, sunspots, and magnetic loops. Students will also examine images ... Full description.

This information is designed to belie the artistic representation of a raindrop as presented by popular culture as a teardrop. Actually, real raindrops bear scant resemblance to this popular fantasy. Students will discover that small raindrops (a radius of less than 1 mm) are spherical; larger ones assume a shape more like that of a hamburger bun. When they get larger than a radius of about 4.5 mm ... Full description.

This activity demonstrates to students how water temperature and the concentration of dissolved and suspended solids affect the density of sea water. They will use various materials, such as salt and food coloring, to create and test water of different densities and record the time it takes drops of different water to sink through a mineral oil cylinder. In the second part of the activity, students ... Full description.

In this activity students will explore how changes in the salinity and temperature of water affect its density and motion. They will discover that in winter months, primary production in the Antarctic Ocean is nearly zero, which creates difficulty for the grazers who depend on primary production. But in the 5-6 months of austral spring and summer, these waters become a nutrient-rich pasture for plankton. ... Full description.

The Curie temperature for iron is reached at about 20 km depth in the Earth, and the temperature is much higher at the outer boundary of the Earth's core so that the iron there is no longer ferromagnetic (the electron spins in the iron can no longer align). This demonstration will help students understand the magnetic field of the Earth, and can help explain the variation of the direction of the field ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 6-8. It focuses on the mystery of black holes, discussing the three basic sizes and how the characteristics of each type make them different from other black holes. It includes objectives, materials, procedures, discussion questions, evaluation ideas, performing extensions, suggested readings, and vocabulary. There ... Full description.

In this activity students test soil samples for percent composition of air, water, organic material, and minerals. They will record the data on their data sheet or in a notebook. Students will understand the four basic soil components and realize that these components can vary widely within a small geographic area. Full description.

This section of the Windows to the Universe web site provides information and images about the cosmos including detailed information about the universe today and the history of, and future of, the universe. Windows to the Universe is a user-friendly learning system pertaining to the Earth and Space sciences. The objective of this project is to develop an innovative and engaging web site that spans ... Full description.