The purpose of this resource is to understand what causes the Earth's seasons with a focus on the Earth's tilt and spherical shape. Students learn how sunlight spreads over the Earth at different times of the year, emphasizing the solstices and the equinoxes. Students investigate the effect of the Earth.s tilt on the spread of sunlight by modeling different tilts using a three-dimensional polyhedron ... Full description.

The purpose of this resource is to further students' understanding of the causes of seasonal change using visualizations to compare the effects of incoming solar energy in the two hemispheres. The class reviews global visualizations of incoming sunlight and surface temperature and discusses seasonal change. Students use the visualizations to support inquiry on the differences in seasonal change in ... Full description.

These activities explain the management of ground water resources using a balanced approach, focusing on interdependencies in the environment. All activities can be performed using readily available materials. Fact sheets, reference materials, and a glossary of terms are provided. The activities cover such topics as groundwater basics, movement of water in aquifers, recharge and discharge, how a well ... Full description.

Discovering Plate Boundaries is based on 5 world maps containing earthquake, volcano, topography, satellite gravity, and seafloor age data. The novel aspect of the exercise is the "jigsaw" manner in which student groups access the maps and use them to discover, classify, and describe plate boundary types. The exercise is based only on observation and description, which makes it useful at a wide variety ... Full description.

This site from SERC's Starting Point presents sample Gallery Walk questions for an activity about map reading. These questions encourage students to examine lines of latitude and longitude, read representative fractions, identify landforms on topographic maps, ways to use road, contour, bedrock, soil, satellite, and aerial maps, and how to critique maps. The questions are organized according to the ... Full description.

This activity has students use internet resources to learn about celestial coordinates, and how to use an emphemeris to locate planets on a horizon sky map. The sky maps are then used for outdoor observing. A more advanced application has students draw maps in celestial coordinates. They first learn about the celestial coordinate system astronomers use and then they generate a position, or ephemeris, ... Full description.

In this activity, students simulate the movement of water within the water cycle with a roll of the die. Role-playing a water molecule helps students to conceptualize the water cycle as more than a predictable two dimensional path, a simple circle of water, flowing from a stream to an ocean, evaporating, condensing to the clouds, raining down on a mountaintop, and flowing back into a stream. As they ... Full description.

These six moon related activities are presented within six topic headings: observing the moon (including the phases), the origin of the moon, and tides. This is chapter six of the online book Eyes on the Sky, Feet on the Ground, an exploration into astronomy as a classroom tool for learning how to theorize, experiment, and analyze data. The activities are fully illustrated and contain detailed, step-by-step ... Full description.

In this activity, students will become familier with the rock cycle. During the first part of the lesson, students work in small groups, each group having a copy of the rock cycle on a sheet of paper and a selection of small-scale samples and photographs that represent the products of the rock cycle. The students lay out their samples and photographs next to what they consider to be the correct boxes ... Full description.

This activity has students use construction paper and coat hangers to construct lunar calendars to learn about different phases of the moon. This lesson could serve as a starting point for a unit on space or space exploration. Students will be able to identify four phases of the moon (new moon, first quarter, full moon, and last quarter). Prior to the construction phase students will access websites, ... Full description.