Chronos: a network for Earth system history
CHRONOS (Greek: time) aims to create a dynamic, interactive and time-calibrated framework for Earth history. CHRONOS's main objective is to develop a network of databases and visualization and analytical methodologies that broadly deal with chronostratigraphy - that is, with developing a better tool (the time scale) for understanding fundamental Earth processes through time. The CHRONOS platform will provide a new investigative environment for interdisciplinary Earth history research that includ
The Living Edens: Virtual Yellowstone Tour
This Starting Point page describes a virtual tour of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming featured on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) website. In this tour, students act as park rangers to research geological features of Yellowstone, locate these features on maps, and describe and define associated geologic terms. The features discussed include geysers, hot springs, canyons, waterfalls and mudpots. On this page, users can find learning goals, teaching notes and tips, teaching materials, as
The Great Energy Debate
The National Geographic Society's global energy debate lesson plan explores the controversial issues surrounding the energy debate in the United States. Students will research recent initiatives being taken in this area and analyze their implications. They will then assume the roles of pivotal stakeholders in this debate and testify to a mock congressional committee responsible for making decisions about public lands and energy resources. This Starting Point website describes the learning goals
Moon Phases
The Moon Phases java applet provides an animated view of the moon, either from Earth, or from above the ecliptic. The animation changes phases and can be seen from a top view, earth view or both. The page also provides vocabulary terms for each of the phases and other interesting information.
Cloud Observation
This lab activity is part of the Starting Point collection. In this short, serial basic-meteorology lab, students identify different cloud types and estimate cloud cover over a period of several days. This website details learning goals, context for the lab, and teaching notes. A list of teaching materials and links to further resources are also provided.
The Impact of Nuclear Fallout
Earl Ubell is a pioneer among science and health writers in America. After a long, distinguished career at The New York Herald Tribune from 1943 to 1966, he went on to work at both CBS and NBC News. Prominent in the emerging scientific writing community in the 1950s and early 1960s, he was a recipient of the Lasker Medical Journalism Award 1957. Milton Stanley Livingston was a leading physicist in the field of magnetic resonance accelerators. Working first with professor Ernest O. Lawrence at th
Galactic Inquiry
In this inquiry activity, students view NASA images of galaxies and develop a galaxy classification scheme. Students then compare and contrast their classification scheme with that developed by Edwin Hubble.
Exploring the Extreme
This site provides lessons on key concepts in the design and flight of F-15 fighter planes. Lessons (K-8) focus on center of gravity; its relationship to thrust vectoring, pitch, and yaw; how thrust is created in a jet engine; how vectoring (directing the thrust from a jet engine) affects movement of a plane; and fuel efficiency and drag.
Paleo Website Java Animations
These animations give a paleo perspective on global warming, drought, and global temperature patterns. Climate Research Unit (CRU) data from 1856-1997 are used to create six animations that show globally mapped temperature. Three other animations reconstruct climates for the last 260 years and show spatial patterns of annual temperature anomalies. There are also two drought animations and an interactive presentation on global temperature patterns in past centuries.
Map Scale Animation
This site features a Flash animation that illustrates the concept of scale by portraying one location from a series of distances from the land surface. This animation can be paused and rewound to stress important points and is suitable for use in lectures, labs, or other teaching activities.
Will the Real Cinderella Please Stand Up?
Students learn that folk stories can be told in many ways and learn to write their own Cinderella story and script according to their own gender or culture. They also become aware of the steps that are necessary to make a film as they learn the various parts that go into the process.
Following Our Dreams
Students will meet women who have embraced nontraditional roles. They will learn what challenges the women encountered, and explore the idea of how different people follow their dreams in the face of challenges.
Women, Their Rights and Nothing Less
A lesson that uses primary documents to help students (Grades 9-12) learn about the women's suffrage movement that began in the 1840s and led to women's right to vote nationwide in 1920.
The Luso-Hispanic World In Maps
This site includes maps created back to the early 16th century, when exploration and new discoveries brought the need for improved information about the world. The maps, most of which are hand drawn, depict portions of five continents and were prepared by cartographers from Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Latin America countries, and the U.S., among others. The maps represent different national and political interests and perspectives, at various periods of time.
1492: An Ongoing Voyage
The exhibition 1492: AN ONGOING VOYAGE describes both pre- and post-contact America, as well as the Mediterranean world at the same time. Compelling questions are raised, such as: Who lived in the Americas before 1492? Who followed in the wake of Columbus? What was the effect of 1492 for Americans throughout the Western Hemisphere? The Library of Congress' Quincentenary exhibition addresses these questions, as well as other related themes, including fifteenth century European navigation, the myt
Phenological Gardens Protocol
The purpose of this resource is to observe the flowering and leaf stages of selected garden plants throughout the year. After a phenological garden is planted, students observe the growth of leaves and blooming of flowers on the plants. These plants were selected because each plant blooms at a different time in the year.
Bringing current science into the classroom
How your students can experience current environmental research without leaving the classroom.
Lakota Winter Counts
offers the world's largest database of Lakota winter counts -- pictures drawn on cloth or buffalo hide to remember each year's key events (1701 to 1905). Ten Lakota bands' winter counts are shown side by side on a timeline. Compare how the bands depicted a particular year. Search for an image. Watch interviews with Lakota. Learn about the culture of this Sioux tribe of the northern plains that followed buffalo herds for food. A teachers guide is included.
Living in a globalised world
meta intro required
Hume
This unit examines Hume's reasons for being complacent in the face of death, as these are laid out in his suppressed essay of 1755, 'Of the immortality of the soul'. More generally, they examine some of the shifts in attitude concerning death and religious belief that were taking place in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, through examination of this and other short essays.
