This letter, which appears as both a Web article and in a printable version, is part of a series written by a glacial geologist working in Antarctica. In her letters home, Stephanie Shipp shares her work and discoveries. This letter discusses how the compass and other navigation tools helped spur the exploration age, the many changes that navigation technology has gone through since then, the problems ... Full description.

This document is a two to three week student inquiry into the question "How do you make a 10 story, football field sized crater in a comet?" The lessons are designed to provide students with experience in conducting scientific inquiries, gain a greater understanding of scientific modeling and get the students involved with the excitement of a NASA mission in development. Full description.

This website is part of the Agricultural Research Service Sci4Kids pages for children 8-13 years old. It highlights the international nature of science. Examples are given scientists who have traveled to Nepal and India, Australia, France, and other places in search of bugs and plants to solve agricultural problems. Children may also look at more Sci4Kids stories with an international flavor or explore ... Full description.

This on-line weather exercise was designed to explore the basics of tornadoes and teach students how tornadoes form, tornado prediction, safety and destruction, and energy in tornadoes. Students use real-time data to predict when and where tornadoes will occur on a given day. Full description.

This video segment, adapted from a NOVA broadcast, explains what might happen to global sea level if atmospheric warming caused the collapse and melting of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet. The segment is three minutes nineteen seconds in length. Full description.

This site describes the ongoing research of the polar bears in the Russian High Arctic. Wrangel Island with neighboring small island, Herald Island, are the key reproductive areas for the Chukchi-Alaskan polar bear population. Marine areas and Wrangel and Herald islands provide optimum foraging habitats for polar bears, and polar bear densities in these marine habitats are high all year round. Approximately ... Full description.

This video segment, adapted from a NOVA broadcast, continues the broadcast 'Antarctic Ice Movement'. This portion explains the phenomenon of ice streams, areas of fast-moving ice flow, and shows a team of scientists seeking evidence to support their hypothesis that atmospheric warming, either now or in the past, may explain why water has formed beneath the ice sheet, creating a lubricating layer of ... Full description.

This site helps answer the question of why there are over 100 types of map projections. Students learn that translating a globe onto a flat surface usually requires some compromise. A problem faced by cartographers is how to take a landmass that exists on a sphere, such as the Earth, and make it flat without distorting the edges or the area. Cartographers have made many attempts to address this problem. ... Full description.

This video segment, adapted from a NOVA broadcast, shows a team of glaciologists carving into a glacier on the East Sheet of Antarctica to monitor the nature and speed of its movement. The segment is three minutes thirty-three seconds in length. Full description.

In this module, students pretend to be an environmental consulting firm that has been hired by the County to investigate two cases involving radon exposure. They will prepare a report addressing: the probable causes of the elevated radon values; the extent of the potential problem; the possible routes and effects of human exposure to radon, and ways to educate the public; and strategies for clean ... Full description.