In this article, The Why Files examines the possible finding of water ice on our Moon, and the implications for this discovery. The article discusses why scientists believe there is water on the Moon, how a neutron spectrometer picks up the unusual presence of hydrogen on the Moon which could indicate water, what scientists hope to use this water for, and where this water may have come from. A moon ... Full description.

This module is designed to connect cutting edge NASA research with the teaching and learning of core science and mathematics concepts and skills while addressing state and national education standards. The process of science inquiry and the tools used to do research play a major role in all the lessons. Topics and research projects include Temperature Variations and Habitability, Modeling Hot and ... Full description.

This publication provides an introduction to the theory of plate tectonics. It was intended as a companion to the map entitled 'This Dynamic Planet', published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Smithsonian Institution. Topics include the history and development of the theory, lines of evidence, plate motions and interactions, hotspots, what drives plate motion, and extraterrestrial plate ... Full description.

The New Millennium Observatory (NeMO) is a seafloor observatory off the coast of Oregon, which studies the relationships between submarine volcanic events and the chemistry and distribution of hydrothermal vents and the biologic communities that depend on them. The research activities at NeMO provide an extraordinary educational opportunity, both from the daily reports from expeditions at sea and ... Full description.

The information on this site indicates that the life cycle of a glacier is more eventful than it appears. The site allows students to follow the journey of a single snowflake as it takes a ride through a glacier, a process that can take as much as 30,000 years to complete. It can be viewed as an interactive slide show or a single page of text and illustrations. Full description.

The goal of the PALEOMAP Project is to illustrate the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years. In the section on Earth history you can select any time period, read about that period, and see the plate distribution during that period. There is also a section on climate history where you can ... 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 provides links to geology fieldnotes about National Parks, Monuments, and Recreation Areas that are part of the Colorado Plateau. Each park site provides links to visitor information, photographs, park maps, multimedia resources, and teacher features (tools for teaching geology with National Park examples). Some of the areas linked to this site include: Dinosaur National Monument, Mesa Verde ... Full description.

This park geology site provides links to tours of individual National Parks, Monuments, and Recreation Areas with the oldest known rocks. The parks are divided at this site into East and West. Where appropriate, for each park, links are provided to park geology, maps, photographs, geologic research, visitor information, multimedia resources, and teacher features (resources for teaching geology using ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 9-12. It centers around fossils found in the Burgess Shale in western Canada. Topics include body shapes of fossils found, the movement of organisms from oceans to land, and whether organisms existed that did not fossilize. This part of geologic history began in the Cambrian Sea about 540 million years ago. The resource ... Full description.