This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) water resources site provides comprehensive coverage of water related issues, and includes several interactive quizzes and activities for children. Here you will find information on many aspects of water, along with pictures, data, maps, and an interactive center. Topics include: Earth's water, Water basics, Water use, Water Questions and Answers, Activity center, ... Full description.

This site, from the Miami Museum of Science, provides an overview of the basic scientific concepts behind a hurricane. A collection of projects allows students to build their own weather station. These include making a psychrometer to measure air humidity, wind spirals, chimes, a wind scale tool to measure wind speed, a wind scale streamer to measure wind direction, and a barometer and air pressure ... Full description.

This lesson plan will explore the hydrologic cycle and the journey water makes to our glass. Upon completing this lesson, students should know and understand the components of the hydrosphere of Earth, especially the surface and subsurface features, and should be able to prepare a diagram to illustrate the path of their drinking water from the place of precipitation to the tap. Full description.

This series of activities demonstrates some effects of rising levels of greenhouse gases on climate. Specifically, it shows how an increase of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere raises temperatures; higher temperatures affect the water cycle, and rising sea levels could affect coastal areas as a result of glacial and polar ice melt. Although these activities are designed to teach specific skills ... Full description.

Students participating in this lesson will collect, observe, and record particulates from the air to contrast visible and invisible air pollution. They then complete a simulation of the damage due to acid rain to illustrate invisible pollution. The lesson plan provides essential elements, objective, focus, a list of materials, background information, procedure, and ideas for enrichment. 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.

This series of activities and experiments demonstrates the importance of feedbacks and the balance of mass and energy in governing the response of any system to change. Energy balance and the factors that cause change (feedbacks) are the keys to understanding climate change, and therefore the keys to understanding the effects of rising levels of greenhouse gases on the environment. Although these ... Full description.

This activity is a fun and easy way to understand the geology of an aquifer. Students will build an edible aquifer, and learn about confining layers, contamination, recharge and water tables. This demonstration is designed to illustrate the geologic formations in an aquifer, how pollution can get into groundwater, and how pumping can cause a decline in the water table. Students will notice how the ... Full description.

These activities give students a hands-on feeling for the relationships between the Earth's structural layers and aid them in understanding the world around them. They will be able to identify (by modeling) the Earth's structure (core, mantle and crust) and also (by experiment and demonstration) the forces within the Earth that cause constant changes on the surface (earthquakes). Full description.

This activity uses role-playing to demonstrate the connection of the planets to the sun, a very abstract concept for primary age children. Students will make models to represent the planets in comparative size, use their models to demonstrate revolution and rotation of the planets around the sun, and learn the definitions of the terms "revolution", "rotation", and "orbit". Full description.