The Global Climate Animations site contains animations of the Earth's climate system for educational and research purposes. The animations show the climatology of the seasonal cycle for selected climate variables for the time period 1959-1997, based on data from the NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project. The individual frames in each animation show the map pattern of the long-term monthly averages ... Full description.

This website features the most complete set of astronaut photography of Earth from the beginning of human spaceflight in the 1960s to the digital photographs being downlinked daily from the International Space Station. The underlying database includes over 430,000 records in 2002, with new data added daily. The pages are maintained by the data source at NASA's Johnson Space Center and include search ... Full description.

The purpose of NASA's Earth Observatory is to provide a freely accessible publication on the Internet where the public can obtain new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. The focus is on Earth's climate and environmental change. The site is divided into six main sections: Data and Images, Features, News, Reference, Missions, and Experiments. The Data and Images, Features, ... Full description.

The Earth Science Picture of the Day is an image archive that is hosted by the Universities Space Research Association in association with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center with a record of entries beginning September 2000. Each image is accompanied by a descriptive text and links to relevant supporting websites. Keyword searching is provided. Browsing by related fields includes: agriculture, astronomy, ... Full description.

This web based story tells of Tutangiaq (nicknamed 2T), a Canada Goose, who flies across the remote state of Alaska looking for his family. As he flies, he tells children about this fascinating 49th state of the US. Children learn how Alaska was purchased from the Russians, and other amazing facts about the state. They compare Alaska to other states that they may be living in or visiting. 2T takes ... 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 U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet introduces topographic maps and explains how scale is used in a map to convey distance, how direction is determined using a compass, and how to use both a map and compass together by taking a compass bearing from a map. Contacts are provided to obtain current and historical magnetic declination information for any place in the United States. Full description.

These two shaded relief maps of the United States allow students to observe the differences in texture of the various areas, bearing in mind the concept of physiographic province, a region where the topographic features share common characteristics (and similar texture). The first map, in color, clearly shows the provinces, even though they are not named, as differences in texture. The second map ... Full description.

This virtual field trip to the Indian Peaks region of the Colorado Front Range introduces students to altitudinal zonation of vegetation and climate, alpine glacial processes and landforms and geographic fieldwork techniques. It offers background information on the physical geography of the region and step-by-step instructions for navigating the field trip and the associated activities. This resource ... Full description.

This website provides an extensive list of links to outline maps of the world, continents, countries, and counties, as well as some historical and thematic maps. Maps are presented as they were originally published, and the original publisher/source and date is provided. Full description.