Earth's Systems
Exploring Climate Change with GIS
The factors at play in shaping our climate as well as the manifestation of its effects are geographic in nature. Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and methods are vital in documenting, monitoring, analyzing, and predicting these dynamic activities and interdependencies. Climate scientists and others in numerous careers and disciplines use GIS and its integrative nature to tackle these issues. You can, too.
Exploring for Petroleum - Modeling an Oil Reserve
Doing this investigation will help you understand how geoscientists identify and explore petroleum-rich reserves.
Exploring Porosity
Earth scientists play a vital role in harvesting the energy resources on which we all rely. When preparing to drill for oil, for example, geoscientists must assess many aspects of a rock stratum (layer). For example, they must figure out the volume of the rock’s pores, or empty spaces, as compared with the rock’s total volume. This is called the rock’s porosity. To help you understand porosity, think about different sizes of gravel. Which size gravel will have the greatest porosity? Why? In this activity, you will work in groups to explore the answers to these questions.
Finding Slope
Explore how the slope of land will effect water flow and life above ground in this activity from the Soil Science Society of America.
Flood!
Learn the dangers of flooding in this activity, where students explore soil porosity and permeability.
Geologic Time Scale Analogy
Unraveling time and the Earth's biologic history are arguably geology's most important contributions to humanity. Yet it is very difficult for humans to appreciate time beyond that of one or two generations, much less hundreds, thousands, millions and billions of years. Perhaps we can only hope that students catch glimpses of our rich geologic heritage, particularly when most of our teaching is done in a classroom and not in a field setting. This exercise begins to make time more "three dimensional" and most importantly, students gain a better appreciation for geologic time and our Earth's history.
Getting Creative - Geologic Map Day Learning Activities
“America the Beautiful” has inspired patriotism in Americans for generations. But few today realize that the song’s lyrics were originally written in the late 1800s by Katharine Lee Bates as a poem — one that she first called “Pike’s Peak.”
Glacier Slide
Glaciers can create lakes, valleys and areas known as kettle marshes. Their weight and movement are the tools a glacier uses to shape the landscape. Use this experiment to look at small "glaciers" and how they shape the landscape around them.
Global Change: Where Land, Air and Water Meet
The atmosphere is a mixture of gases. Similarly, the world's oceans and fresh waters contain dissolved chemicals. Many substances dispersed in air or water are measured in parts per million. Some of these substances are colorless, odorless, and tasteless, yet even in small quantities they can be toxic. To develop an understanding of parts per million as a concept, teams of students will create successive dilutions of a solution to reach a parts-per-million concentration.
Gold Panning
Travel back in time and try your luck panning for 'gold' in this fun mineral activity.
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