This animation shows how S-waves (secondary, or shear, waves) travel through a Slinky toy. It is accompanied by a brief written explanation that describes some of the properties of S-waves and how they are generated in a real Slinky. Full description.

This simple demonstration illustrates for children the concept of plate movement and its consequences. Full description.

In this activity, the teacher will construct a "comet" from ingredients that closely resemble the substances which make up a real comet. A list of ingredients, materials, and instructions are provided. Students can watch the comet as it melts, releasing jets of carbon dioxide and becoming pitted with craters in much the same way as a real one. Full description.

This website contains class notes from a 100 level Calculus course at University of British Columbia. The site outlines the use of differential equations and solutions in the context of population growth. The lecture notes contain questions for consideration, detailed explanation of necessary equations and additional resources on the topic. Full description.

This PowerPoint presentation addresses research on the thinking and learning processes of students and how increased knowledge of these processes can be used to structure lectures in a manner that will change the way students learn. It covers methods for course redesign, classroom assessment techniques, levels of learning and goals in general education courses. Among other things, it was found that ... Full description.

In this activity, students create artificial clouds inside a plastic bottle. This activity can be performed as a demonstration by the teacher, or older students can conduct the experiment themselves. A list of materials, procedures, and an explanation of the cloud-forming process are provided. Full description.

This site describes a demonstration of how the interference of seismic P (primary, compressional) and S (secondary, shear) waves cause standing waves such as surface waves in the Earth. The demonstration focuses on the P and S waves that are bouncing back and forth in the vertical direction in the Earth. Using a slinky, different frequencies are used to create different modes of standing waves. The ... Full description.

These demonstrations are designed to help students develop a conceptual understanding of geophysical principles. The concepts covered in these demonstrations include rheology, seismic waves, reflection, standing waves, velocity, earthquakes, Earth density, magnetic field, resonance, precession, the shadow zone, and Curie temperature. Each demonstration provides background information and a complete ... Full description.

The properties of a rheid represent essentially all Earth materials: they behave elastically over short time scales and plastically over long time scales. In this demonstration, silly putty is used to help explain these properties as well as the yield strength of a material. Full description.

This PowerPoint presentation on the fundamentals of wind tunnel testing provides ideas for sample experiments; explanations of lift, drag, governing equations, how to make measurements, flow visualization techniques, and types of wind tunnels; and reasons for testing in wind tunnels. Full description.