This set of lessons provides teachers with ideas on how to turn their schoolyards into a rich geologic experience that students will find familiar, easily accessible, and personally relevant. The three lesson plans feature materials on mapping, rock descriptions and geologic interpretations, ages of rocks, and dinosaur tracks. Lesson 1, "Map Your Schoolyard," teaches students what maps are, what they ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 6-8. It focuses on Alfred Wegener's theory of Continental Drift and the evidence used to support it. Using fossil types and maps, students view similarities between continents that led Wegener to conclude that they had once been together as a supercontinent, Pangea. Included are objectives, materials, procedures, discussion ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 6-8. It focuses on how landslides occur and how scientists predict them. Students design and perform their own experiments using homemade stream tables. Using these tables they test landslide types and draw conclusions about water flow, timing, and other factors that determine how landslides occur. It includes objectives, ... Full description.

This is the teacher resource site for the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) program "Stories from the Fossil Record". It provides information to aide instructors in implementing the program in a classroom setting. Included are lesson plans, handouts, related activities, and background references. Also included are pre- and post-lesson assessments. Full description.

In this activity, students gather data and compare the shaking intensities of the 1906 San Francsico and 1989 Loma Prieta earthquakes. They compare shaking intensity maps from the two earthquakes using the Modified Mercalli Shake Intensity, examine the lengths of fault ruptures, and examine seismograph traces from each earthquake. Links to additional information and to lesson plans that use these ... Full description.

This site is a joint effort of NOAA Research and the College of Education at the University of South Alabama. The goal of the site is to provide middle school science students and teachers with research and investigation experiences using on-line resources. In this unit students explore what El Nino is, where it is located, how it is created, and weather changes that El Nino causes. Students analyze ... Full description.

Rock Hounds is a group of activities, puzzles, literature sources, and quizzes that may enhance any K-12 geology unit. Rocky, the Rock Hound, leads learners through an adventure and gain an understanding of the rock cycle including how sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks form. A lesson plan included in the Teaching Connections section compiles these resources into a progression that could ... Full description.

This informational tour offers students a basic understanding of geologic time, the evidence for events in the history of the Earth, relative and absolute dating techniques, and the significance of the Geologic Time Scale. Students move at a self-selected pace by answering questions correctly as they go. The teacher's guide contains all the details needed to use this computer activity, including handouts, ... Full description.

This computer activity provides a basic understanding of what a fossil is and the factors involved in becoming part of the fossil record. It is organized as an informational tour in two sections: one for middle school and one for high school. Students move at a self-selected pace by progressing and answering questions. A teacher's guide contains all necessary instructions as well as lesson plans, ... Full description.

In this lesson, students begin with a classroom activity in which they gain confidence in using cardinal directions. They then work together on a web activity to learn the meaning of longitude and latitude and the method of notation. Two classroom activities are included to provide additional practice and to assess the students' ability to locate specific places worldwide. By the end of this series ... Full description.