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Book Chapter
The Reading on Rocks and Minerals 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. Typical rocks...
Book Chapter
Seafloor Spreading: Divergent Plate Boundaries
Students, in this activity, will make and use a paper model to understand seafloor spreading. By doing so, they explore patterns of rock ages and rock magnetism parallel to mid-ocean ridges. ...
Book Chapter
Careers in Geology and Geosciences
The Reading on Careers in Geology and Geosciences provides a resource for teachers to help students know what geologists do and how to become one. The Readings were written especially for Project Earth Science: Geology, Revised 2nd Edition. with ...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students will experiment with the old but still useful technique of using sounding lines to make seafloor maps. As is done often in science and in other fields, students will work in teams. They should observe that the number of mea...
Book Chapter
Rocks Tell a Story: Rock Characteristics and Environmental Clues
Identifying rocks can be difficult, even for geologists. Proper rock identification depends on the quality of the specimen and on the clarity of its significant characteristics. In this activity, students observe and compare pairs of related rocks an...
Book Chapter
The Rock Cycle: Rock Formation and Change
A single rock could provide an example of how slowly most geological changes occur on Earth. If you picked up a rock and kept it for the rest of your life, you would probably notice that it changes little, if at all. Yet, rocks can and do change; it ...
Book Chapter
Students, in this activity, use a globe and lamp to model Earth’s orbit. From this concrete model, they see and understand that the cause of Earth’s seasons is the tilt of its rotational axis....
Book Chapter
The greenhouse effect refers to the way Earth’s atmospheric gases create a barrier that allows the heat from the Sun to penetrate and be absorbed by Earth’s surface. The heat is trapped, much like in a greenhouse. The greenhouse effect on Venus w...
Book Chapter
Every 29.5 days, the Moon’s shape appears to change in a predictable cycle. We call the shapes phases of the Moon. This activity will show how the Moon’s orbit causes the Moon’s phases. Students use Ping-Pong or Styrofoam balls to model the way...
Book Chapter
Students, in this activity, measure distances by walking heel-to-toe in the unit “student minute.” This is to gain an intuitive under¬standing of light years, a unit in which time represents distance....
Book Chapter
Much has been written about global warming and climate change, but Dr. Claire Parkinson, a NASA climatologist, cautions about the more alarmist predictions of future crises. Global warming is a fact, but how we go about dealing with it is still open ...
Book Chapter
Measuring diameters of objects in the solar system is difficult due to their vast distances and huge sizes. If the distance to an object is known, we can use a method of indirect measurement in which we measure the angular diameter, and then apply a ...
Book Chapter
The cause for the changing appearance of the Moon—its phases—is a difficult concept for many people to learn, and this gives rise to some surprisingly stubborn preconceptions. The phases are caused by the fact that we can only see the part of the...
Book Chapter
Sizes and distances in the solar system are difficult to visualize. In this activity, students calculate scaled distances and planetary diameters to planets in our solar system. They then make a model in a large open space, using their scaled measure...
Book Chapter
For the past 400 years, astronomers have explored the universe with telescopes. Telescopes gather light from distant objects and funnel the light into our eyes, or into a camera. But, Earth’s atmosphere absorbs some of the light coming from those d...