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Book Chapter
Ballpark Pretzels: Using Microscopes to Observe Yeast Fermentation of Sugar
The experiment in this free chapter provides a hands-on lab experience for students to being their investigation into yeast and the fermentation of sugars. The experiment allows students to view the yeast under the microscope, gaining skills in using...
Book Chapter
Osmosis and "Naked" Eggs: The Environment Matters
Osmosis is the diffusion of water through a selectively permeable membrane. Given their size and availability, the hard exterior shell of eggs provide a convenient macro-scale model of the system-level phenomenon of osmosis. Once the shell of a fres...
Book Chapter
Edible Plate Tectonics: Plates Move and Interact
Plate tectonics is geology’s central theory and one of the most important in science. It provides explanations for many of Earth’s major geological processes and physical features. This Activity uses an unusual physical model to introduce some of...
Book Chapter
Convection: Transfer of Heat From Earth’s Interior
In this activity, students conduct experimental trials involving a drop of food coloring moved by convection in a pan of water to observe convection cells. Students record their observations on this model and relate what is observed in the pan to wha...
Book Chapter
A Voyage Through Time: Pangaea Breakup and Continent/Plate Movement
In this activity, students will follow the movement of continents over the past 200 million years, beginning with the breakup of Pangaea. Students analyze the consequences of plate tectonics on continents by modeling the breakup of Pangaea via a flip...
Book Chapter
Magma and Volcanoes: Model of a Volcano
Students, in this activity, model a volcanic eruption by melting crayons inside a plaster of paris model. They use a hot water bath to melt the wax, which rises through a tube they made with string in the plaster of paris...
Book Chapter
Shake It Up: Earthquakes and Damage to Buildings
Nearly all locations on Earth experience occasional earthquakes, although most of them are not large enough to cause significant damage. In this activity, students will use sugar cubes to investigate and compare the effects of an earthquake on differ...
Book Chapter
Study Your Sandwich: Sedimentary Rock Layers, Structures, and Relative Ages
In this activity, students make a triple-decker, soy butter with raisins and jelly sandwich to model sedimentary rock formations. They take core samples with a straw, fold the sandwich into synclines and anticlines, and cut it to simulate faulting. F...
Book Chapter
GeoPatterns: Global Earthquake Distribution
Do earthquakes occur randomly, or are there patterns to their distribution? Does where earthquakes occur shed light on why they occur? What causes earthquakes? What determines where an earthquake will occur? In this Activity, students will look for p...
Book Chapter
The Reading on Plate Tectonics elaborates on the concepts presented in the Activities section of Project Earth Science: Geology, Revised 2nd Edition. This Reading was written especially for this volume with the teacher in mind. The outer part of ...
Book Chapter
Volcanoes and Plates: Volcanic Activity and Plate Boundaries
In this activity, students compare locations of volcanoes to the types of rocks erupted and tie this in to the motions of lithospheric plates. They will map rocks by their main chemical components. Students then discern plate boundaries from their ma...
Book Chapter
The Reading on Volcanoes elaborates on the concepts presented in the Activities section of Project Earth Science: Geology, Revised 2nd Edition. This Reading was written especially for this volume with the teacher in mind. Volcanic activity occu...
Book Chapter
Volcanoes and Hot Spots: Formation of Hawaiian Islands
Students, in this activity, relate plate movement to trails of volcanoes by modeling a hot spot with hot colored water rising under a floating Styrofoam plate. Questions guide students to connecting their model to Hawaiian volcanoes and the Emperor S...
Book Chapter
The Reading on Earthquakes elaborates on the concepts presented in the Activities section of Project Earth Science: Geology, Revised 2nd Edition. This Reading was written especially for this volume with the teacher in mind. Most earthquakes occ...
Book Chapter
All Cracked Up: Model of Earth’s Layers
In this Activity, students will learn more about the structure or layering of Earth. Students analyze a hard-boiled egg as a model for Earth’s interior structure. They then scrutinize and evaluate other objects as models for Earth. ...