Portals for Earth Science Subjects
Technology Resources for Teaching Science This page from Edtech Teacher provides different resources for teachers of science from websites on biology and chemistry to those providing teaching materials on medicine and nanoscience.
Propello - A New Science Teaching and Learning Platform Propello is a new service that offers a free and customizable science learning platform. Propello provides teachers with core science curriculum that is recommended for students in grades six through eight. But because Propello allows teachers to modify materials, the curriculum could be used with younger or older students. When you sign-up for a free Propello account you'll have access to all of the materials on offer. The materials are organized into three sections. Those sections are Earth and Space Science, Life Science, and Physical Science. www.freetech4teachers.com
The USGS Multimedia Gallery Offers Excellent Public Domain Images and Videos The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, audio recordings, pictures, and slideshows. As you might expect, you'll also find lots of maps in the USGS multimedia gallery. You can browse and search the gallery according to media type, year of publication, and keyword. In addition to the videos in the USGS Multimedia Gallery you can find many videos on the official USGS YouTube channel. If you need images or videos to help you deliver a lesson to your Earth Science students, the USGS Multimedia Gallery should be one of the first places you visit. Likewise students developing multimedia presentations for their Earth Science classes would be well-served to visit the USGS Multimedia Gallery. www.freetech4teachers.com
Science Journal for Kids and Teens Free reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) and/or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources).
Resources For Teaching & Learning About World Water Conservation Includes resources for International Water Day in March
TEACHFLIX (DitchThatTextbook.com/TEACHFLIX)What if you could access tons of great YouTube videos for your class all in one place? That's what we have collected here on our Ditch That Textbook TEACHFLIX page. Browse 360 videos, elementary and middle school science, virtual field trips and more.
ExploreLearning Gizmos A site containing an array of math and science simulations arranged by curriculum, topic, or textbook. These little applications explore hundreds of concepts that students learn in elementary, middle, and high school math and science.
OLogy has been recognized as a premier site for science learning by supporting children’s questions about the natural world. Now teachers can use OLogy to support reading comprehension in their classroom. Through a partnership with ReadWorks, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City has paired dozens of OLogy articles with vocabulary lessons and formative assessments. These units cover life, earth, and physical science content and are available for students in elementary through high school. Students can read articles such as “Creatures of the Reef” (third grade); “Wonderful World of Wasps” (fifth grade); “Paleontology: The Big Dig” (seventh grade); and “Unearthing Pterosaurs” (eleventh and twelfth grades). Teachers can explore these and other articles on the ReadWorks website.
GeoXplorer app for iOS and Android devices helps students understand the complex, three-dimensional nature of geologic structures. Rather than having to physically travel around the world to study specific geologic specimens, students can use GeoXplorer to browse thousands of 3D terrain models, learn about them, and view them in augmented reality just as they appear in the real world.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources). Teachers will also find a collection of lesson ideas, including hands-on activities, case studies, and games with distance-learning options.
Inq-ITS is a science learning platform with simulations for Physical, Life, and Earth Science - all aligned with NGSS standards. Students show what they know and educators get real-time, actionable data to inform whole class instruction or one-on-one support. Rex, the virtual coach, gives students personalized assistance to help students conduct inquiry.’ Watch this video to learn more about Inq-ITS.
MySciLife gr 6 - 8) A free educational social media platform that leverages social media elements students already enjoy using to create media and active connections with curricular content and develop digital citizenship skills. Students design identities based on science concepts, conduct research to build their profiles, and learn from one another as they personify their identities in posts, comments, and responses. For example, they may choose to become their favorite planet and talk about their region of the Solar System. Or they may comment on posts as different organisms to show relationships in the food chain, or play two truths and a lie while personifying a tectonic plate.
Frontiers Science For Kids - Not only are these articles for kids... they are written by kids. Perhaps your students could be the next contributor.
NOVA Education tailors digital resources for STEM educators and offers a freeeducator library featuring videos, audio segments, lesson plans, and interactives, all aligned to teaching standards.
LabXChange Harvard
More than 300 free lab simulations that can be easily shared or embedded. Searchable by subject, level, source, and 13 different languages. A rich resource for virtual labs, including some very topical entries, such as Covid-19 infection spread, climate change predictor, and model of hydraulic fracking.
Wildearth Kids "We take kids ages 4-18 on free, live and interactive safari experiences, transporting them from wherever they are onto the back of a virtual safari vehicle! For 45 minutes, kids join safariLIVE and tour two of the most iconic wildlife areas in the world – the Kruger Park of South Africa and the Maasai Mara in Kenya. They interact with our expert naturalists in real time as they drive through the African wilderness, asking questions about what they see."
Prepmagic Customize science simulations to highlight phenomena by adding pause points, notes, and quizzes to simulations, teachers can help build and assess student understanding. Not all simulations are customizable yet, but there are plans to add more in the future.
Science News For Kids - A collection of the latest news written for kids that will fit into any project.
The Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction (READI) Project, a multi-institutional initiative headed by the University of Illinois at Chicago, supports disciplinary argumentation from multiple sources in middle school and high school science and history/social studies classes The website provides links to integrative curriculum modules developed as part of the project. For example, “Life Sciences: The Spread of MRSA” (versioned for grades 6 and 9) supports science students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices while building their knowledge of evolution, microbes, and antibiotic resistance. Similarly, the module “Earth Science: How Are Humans Impacting Water?” (for grade 8) supports students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices in science while building knowledge of water resources and pollution. The “Reading Science Modules” (for grades 6 and 9) support students’ close reading of science visuals and models while building knowledge about the conventions of scientific models and the criteria for evaluating them. Each module includes a freely downloadable interactive notebook with integrated texts, tasks, scaffolds, and routines, along with an annotated teacher guide.
ExploreLearning Gizmos provides over 400 math and science online simulations that power inquiry and understanding. It has a free Gizmos account available for science and math educators with a curated collection of Gizmos that change every January/July. Each Gizmo comes with teacher guides and customizable lesson materials. Some of the major features of Gizmos include: interactive design which allows for extensive manipulation of variables and ‘what-if’ experimentation; visualizations and graphing tools help capture and compare results from experiments; in-depth activities create more moments to explore, discover and apply new concepts.
Teach The Earth This portal provides thousands of pages of activities, workshops, course descriptions and more.The work of hundreds of geoscience educators and over a dozen projects.
Mosa Mack 4th through 8th grade A resource for science teachers and students. Mosa Mack provides students with a variety of short animated mysteries that they have to solve using knowledge gleaned from videos they watch. Mosa Mack adopts an inquiry-based approach to science learning and provides content that is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. Mosa Mack arranges its science content into units each of which is comprised of three lessons that ‘progress upwards on Blooms Taxonomy and the the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) chart.Additionally, each lesson comes with a number of hands-on activities and several other materials (e.g graphic organizers, PowerPoint presentations, assessments, lesson plans…etc).
The Concord Consortium has hundreds of science activities and computer simulations best used with middle and high school students. Teachers can use the site to find tasks aligned to their standards, push assignments out to their students, and track student progress. By assigning a task to their class, teachers can view written responses that students provide throughout an activity. Activities are organized by discipline in the life, engineering, physical, and earth sciences.
BioInteractive provides access to a treasure trove of educational materials to use in science classes. You will find multimedia materials, videos, interactives, classroom activities, teacher guides, virtual labs and many other resources. In Holiday Lectures, for instance, you will get introduced to a series of lectures covering different scientific topics presented by leading scientists. The Short Films section features a number of ‘broadcast-quality films designed to engage students. Each one tells a different scientific story and is supported by supplemental resources including teacher guides and activities.’
Inq-ITS a science learning platform with simulations for Physical, Life, and Earth Science - all aligned with NGSS standards. Students show what they know and educators get real-time, actionable data to inform whole class instruction or one-on-one support. Rex, the virtual coach, gives students personalized assistance to help students conduct inquiry.’ Watch this video to learn more about Inq-ITS.
NOVA Labs, a groundbreaking new digital platform where “citizen scientists” can actively participate in the scientific process by visualizing, analyzing, and sharing the same data that scientists use during real-world investigations—from predicting solar storms and designing renewable energy systems to learning cybersecurity strategies. In the classroom,
“Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms.”The goal of the project is to design, test, and disseminate new instructional models and digital media tools that will enable science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning. Earth science content consists of interactive lessons and modules developed by WGBH in collaboration with NASA, with input from a national group of 50 representative teacher advisors with diverse backgrounds and pedagogical approaches. The engaging and interactive tools have been designed for diverse learners. They feature innovative media formats that draw on the unique assets from NASA—including satellite images and data visualizations—and videos drawn from WGBH’s signature programs, such as NOVA and PEEP & The Big Wide World. The Earth science modules address content covered in kindergarten through grade 12, focusing on topics such as weather, climate, land, and water.
Scientist in the Classroom provides a platform for teachers and scientists to collaborate as colleagues, peers, and partners in furthering science education. While scientists can act as a resource for teachers and students, in turn teachers and students can help scientists better understand how to convey their work to a larger, more diverse, and often skeptical audience to give scientists a better understanding of the challenges teachers face when presenting these often socially contentious and misunderstood topics.
Mystery Science for elementary teachers. Created by a science teacher, Mystery Science provides a wide variety of lessons to enhance your students learning of science and engage them in hands-on activities focused around a given Mystery. Every activity is designed around simple supplies which ’you should already have in the classroom or around your home.’ Each Mystery revolves around a hands-on activity and comes with a number of short videos and discussions
EcoMOBILE a project of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, uses virtual elements that intersect with real-world experiences to teach middle school students about ecosystem science and the complex factors that contribute to a natural habitat. EcoMOBILE grew out of EcoMUVE, a four-week curriculum that lets students explore virtual ecosystems on their computers. Whereas EcoMUVE teaches students in the classroom about how different elements of an ecosystem affect one another over time, EcoMOBILE guides students out in the field. EcoMOBILE links the fieldtrip to classwork by providing a record of what students explored and the data they collected. Students then take that information back into the classroom to discuss it, analyze it, and see photosynthesis happening. A third phase of the EcoLearn program, called EcoXPT. With EcoXPT, students go beyond making observations to actually conducting simulated experiments using virtual experimental tools.
Ecoregions is an interactive map produced by Resolve for the purpose of showing the ecoregions and biomes of the world. When you visit the map you can choose to display either ecoregions or biomes. After you make that selection you can then click on any location on the map to discover the ecoregion or biome of that location. www.freetech4teacers.com
ExploreLearning Gizmos provides over 400 math and science online simulations that power inquiry and understanding. It has a free Gizmos account available for science and math educators with a curated collection of Gizmos that change every January/July. Each Gizmo comes with teacher guides and customizable lesson materials. Some of the major features of Gizmos include: interactive design which allows for extensive manipulation of variables and ‘what-if’ experimentation; visualizations and graphing tools help capture and compare results from experiments; in-depth activities create more moments to explore, discover and apply new concepts.
Smithsonian Science for Global Goals is a new, freely available curriculum that uses the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development as a framework to focus on sustainable actions to local problems, defined and implemented by students. The curriculum was developed to be region and grade-level agnostic so that any student between the ages of 8 and 17 will be able to engage in the material. Among the tentative topics are “Energy” (How do we balance energy and environmental concerns?), “Weather and People” (How do we balance economics and preparedness?), “Biotechnology and Humans” (How do we balance technology, actions, and ethics?), and “Access” (How do we balance support for individuals with special needs?). Students have the opportunity to learn firsthand from researchers who are working on these problems around the world. Students then engage in inquiry-based challenges in their local communities, considering the problems through multiple perspectives (social, ethical, economic, environmental).
Stop Disasters! ( gr 7 - 12 ) Game Few other browser-based sims better illustrate the potential of gaming for learning about serious issues in our world.
Earth Science Reading Comprehension is designed for elementary readers and includes short passages.
Earth and Beyond From The Children's University of Manchester there is are interactive animations.
Nuskool This is a site that uses pop culture as teaching moments for students. Tailored to grades 6th-12th students learn a variety of subjects such as: Math, Science, English, etc through educational lessons based on the different elements of pop culture (video games, sports, films, etc.).
Introduction to Landforms: the Earth's changing shape 2nd grade
Our Little Earth is a nice site that provides bi-weekly summaries of the world's biggest news stories. The summaries are written for students. Each edition includes video clips along with the stories. In each edition you'll find stories appropriate for use in social studies, math, and science lessons. You may also find stories about the arts, entertainment, and popular culture. A few "did you know" questions appear in each issue as well. An archive containing every edition going back to 2007 is available too.
The Interactive Library Applets for Math, Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry & Earth Science (6-12)
http://edinfo.securesites.net/il/il_math.htm
The Interactive Library is about "real interactivity"! The database contains hundreds of activities that make use of sophisticated java, vrml and shockwave programs. Teachers can create their own activity sheet to go with the programs. Students can use these programs to supplement their classroom activities, or use one of the more advanced applets as a starting point for their science project.
FreezeRay (4-12)
http://freezeray.com/index.html
This site offers a growing bank of imaginative, highly visual teaching-aids developed for use with interactive whiteboards in schools. The resources are designed to be used as rich sources of visually stimulating material, making use of both animations and drag and drop interactivity.
Kineticcity is developed by the American Association for The Advancement of Science . Kineticcity provides some of the amazing collection of science experiments, games, activities, and challenges.
Clue Into Climate: Exploring The Causes of Climate Change Learn about the science of climate change–from what greenhouse gases are to how they warm the Earth–and hear from people whose work helps us understand our changing planet. This collection explores the causes of climate change, its impacts on freshwater and ecosystems, and strategies for curbing and adapting to climate change.
Teach Climate Network provides teaching tips, resources, inspiration, and community networking with educators from all disciplines, grade levels, and educational settings
Mapping Extreme Heat EAT.gov website is a National Integrated Heat Health Information System. You can find a wide variety of heat-tracking tools online. What’s amazing is how many provide learners with access to a way to map the heat. Some tools like the Climate Change Tracker, allow you to enter a zip code and see the heat index:
Climate Learning Resources Portal
Climate Literacy & Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) (cleanet.org) CLEAN provides easy to read explanations of science and policy, designed to step students through key principles of climate and energy.
Dr. Deb L. Morrison’s Climate Justice Resource Collection (debmorrison.me/resources/climate-justice-and-learning) This website Dr. Morrison’s ever growing collection of digital resources that can be leveraged to support justice centered climate change education.
New Jersey’s Climate Change Education Resources (nj.gov/education/standards/climate) Professional learning and instructional specifically focused on evidence-based climate change education
Washington’s Climate Science Education Resources (https://www.oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/87152/overview) Professional learning and instructional resources developed through or used in the state ClimeTime initiative focused on evidence-based climate science education.
Climate Mapping for Resilence The government website designed to help Americans face the challenges of extreme weather and other hazards arising from climate change. The new portal provides real-time information on climate related hazards currently effecting the United States and also information which can help will communities, cities and states states plan for the future impacts of global heating and climate change.
The Climate Portal from MIT has lots of relatively accessible text “explainers” about different aspects of climate change.
Video: “See what three degrees of global warming looks like”
Our Beautiful Planet website. Each seeks to showcase climate science research. Videos are five to seven minutes long and include classroom lesson plans.
NASA’s Climate Time Machine offers a sobering look at changes in the following areas:
A third of Americans are already facing above-average warming is from The Guardian.
Who is Damaging The Climate Most
How Climate Change Fuels Deadly Conflict
NASA's Climate Kids website has many excellent online and offline resources for teaching students about climate change. One of those resources is the Big Questions page. The Big Questions page guides students through the basic concepts and issues related to climate change. Six big questions are featured on the page. Students select a question to discover the answers through the exploration of a series of smaller questions. Each question is addressed with a mix of image, text, and video explanations. www.freeteck4teachers.com
6 INTERACTIVE TOOLS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE CLIMATE CRISIS
The race to zero: can America reach net-zero emissions by 2050? is from The Guardian.
What was the CO2 when you were born?
Heartbeat of the Earth A series of online artworks interpreting climate data.
Teach About Climate Change With These 24 New York Times Graphs
Climate Change Education is a middle and high school climate change curriculum from Stanford.
The American Educator has an issue on climate change.
PhET simulation is about the greenhouse effect. The simulation can be used to help students understand the effect of greenhouse gases and clouds on sunlight, infrared radiation, and surface temperature. And students can use the simulation to compare and contrast the behavior of sunlight and infrared radiation. www.freetech4teachers.com
Clue Into Climate: Exploring The Causes of Climate Change Learn about the science of climate change–from what greenhouse gases are to how they warm the Earth–and hear from people whose work helps us understand our changing planet. This collection explores the causes of climate change, its impacts on freshwater and ecosystems, and strategies for curbing and adapting to climate change.
A third of Americans are already facing above-average warming is from The Guardian.
Who is Damaging The Climate Most
How Climate Change Fuels Deadly Conflict
Students want climate change lessons. Schools aren’t ready is from The L.A. Times.
Surging Seas interactive.Type in the name of any coastal location in the United States, and you’ll see what the future holds.
HHMI's BioInteractive is a good place for all science teachers to search for science lesson plans, videos, animations, and slideshows to use with students. You can search the BioInteractive library according to topic, keyword, or resource type
Propello - A New Science Teaching and Learning Platform Propello is a new service that offers a free and customizable science learning platform. Propello provides teachers with core science curriculum that is recommended for students in grades six through eight. But because Propello allows teachers to modify materials, the curriculum could be used with younger or older students. When you sign-up for a free Propello account you'll have access to all of the materials on offer. The materials are organized into three sections. Those sections are Earth and Space Science, Life Science, and Physical Science. www.freetech4teachers.com
The USGS Multimedia Gallery Offers Excellent Public Domain Images and Videos The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, audio recordings, pictures, and slideshows. As you might expect, you'll also find lots of maps in the USGS multimedia gallery. You can browse and search the gallery according to media type, year of publication, and keyword. In addition to the videos in the USGS Multimedia Gallery you can find many videos on the official USGS YouTube channel. If you need images or videos to help you deliver a lesson to your Earth Science students, the USGS Multimedia Gallery should be one of the first places you visit. Likewise students developing multimedia presentations for their Earth Science classes would be well-served to visit the USGS Multimedia Gallery. www.freetech4teachers.com
Science Journal for Kids and Teens Free reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) and/or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources).
Resources For Teaching & Learning About World Water Conservation Includes resources for International Water Day in March
TEACHFLIX (DitchThatTextbook.com/TEACHFLIX)What if you could access tons of great YouTube videos for your class all in one place? That's what we have collected here on our Ditch That Textbook TEACHFLIX page. Browse 360 videos, elementary and middle school science, virtual field trips and more.
ExploreLearning Gizmos A site containing an array of math and science simulations arranged by curriculum, topic, or textbook. These little applications explore hundreds of concepts that students learn in elementary, middle, and high school math and science.
OLogy has been recognized as a premier site for science learning by supporting children’s questions about the natural world. Now teachers can use OLogy to support reading comprehension in their classroom. Through a partnership with ReadWorks, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City has paired dozens of OLogy articles with vocabulary lessons and formative assessments. These units cover life, earth, and physical science content and are available for students in elementary through high school. Students can read articles such as “Creatures of the Reef” (third grade); “Wonderful World of Wasps” (fifth grade); “Paleontology: The Big Dig” (seventh grade); and “Unearthing Pterosaurs” (eleventh and twelfth grades). Teachers can explore these and other articles on the ReadWorks website.
GeoXplorer app for iOS and Android devices helps students understand the complex, three-dimensional nature of geologic structures. Rather than having to physically travel around the world to study specific geologic specimens, students can use GeoXplorer to browse thousands of 3D terrain models, learn about them, and view them in augmented reality just as they appear in the real world.
Science Journal for Kids and Teens reports on cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science research adapted for students and their teachers. Articles can be selected according to reading level (elementary school, lower high school, middle school, upper high school) or subject field (biodiversity and conservation, biology, energy and climate, food and agriculture, health and medicine, physical science, pollution, social science, technology, water resources). Teachers will also find a collection of lesson ideas, including hands-on activities, case studies, and games with distance-learning options.
Inq-ITS is a science learning platform with simulations for Physical, Life, and Earth Science - all aligned with NGSS standards. Students show what they know and educators get real-time, actionable data to inform whole class instruction or one-on-one support. Rex, the virtual coach, gives students personalized assistance to help students conduct inquiry.’ Watch this video to learn more about Inq-ITS.
MySciLife gr 6 - 8) A free educational social media platform that leverages social media elements students already enjoy using to create media and active connections with curricular content and develop digital citizenship skills. Students design identities based on science concepts, conduct research to build their profiles, and learn from one another as they personify their identities in posts, comments, and responses. For example, they may choose to become their favorite planet and talk about their region of the Solar System. Or they may comment on posts as different organisms to show relationships in the food chain, or play two truths and a lie while personifying a tectonic plate.
Frontiers Science For Kids - Not only are these articles for kids... they are written by kids. Perhaps your students could be the next contributor.
NOVA Education tailors digital resources for STEM educators and offers a freeeducator library featuring videos, audio segments, lesson plans, and interactives, all aligned to teaching standards.
LabXChange Harvard
More than 300 free lab simulations that can be easily shared or embedded. Searchable by subject, level, source, and 13 different languages. A rich resource for virtual labs, including some very topical entries, such as Covid-19 infection spread, climate change predictor, and model of hydraulic fracking.
Wildearth Kids "We take kids ages 4-18 on free, live and interactive safari experiences, transporting them from wherever they are onto the back of a virtual safari vehicle! For 45 minutes, kids join safariLIVE and tour two of the most iconic wildlife areas in the world – the Kruger Park of South Africa and the Maasai Mara in Kenya. They interact with our expert naturalists in real time as they drive through the African wilderness, asking questions about what they see."
Prepmagic Customize science simulations to highlight phenomena by adding pause points, notes, and quizzes to simulations, teachers can help build and assess student understanding. Not all simulations are customizable yet, but there are plans to add more in the future.
Science News For Kids - A collection of the latest news written for kids that will fit into any project.
The Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction (READI) Project, a multi-institutional initiative headed by the University of Illinois at Chicago, supports disciplinary argumentation from multiple sources in middle school and high school science and history/social studies classes The website provides links to integrative curriculum modules developed as part of the project. For example, “Life Sciences: The Spread of MRSA” (versioned for grades 6 and 9) supports science students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices while building their knowledge of evolution, microbes, and antibiotic resistance. Similarly, the module “Earth Science: How Are Humans Impacting Water?” (for grade 8) supports students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices in science while building knowledge of water resources and pollution. The “Reading Science Modules” (for grades 6 and 9) support students’ close reading of science visuals and models while building knowledge about the conventions of scientific models and the criteria for evaluating them. Each module includes a freely downloadable interactive notebook with integrated texts, tasks, scaffolds, and routines, along with an annotated teacher guide.
ExploreLearning Gizmos provides over 400 math and science online simulations that power inquiry and understanding. It has a free Gizmos account available for science and math educators with a curated collection of Gizmos that change every January/July. Each Gizmo comes with teacher guides and customizable lesson materials. Some of the major features of Gizmos include: interactive design which allows for extensive manipulation of variables and ‘what-if’ experimentation; visualizations and graphing tools help capture and compare results from experiments; in-depth activities create more moments to explore, discover and apply new concepts.
Teach The Earth This portal provides thousands of pages of activities, workshops, course descriptions and more.The work of hundreds of geoscience educators and over a dozen projects.
Mosa Mack 4th through 8th grade A resource for science teachers and students. Mosa Mack provides students with a variety of short animated mysteries that they have to solve using knowledge gleaned from videos they watch. Mosa Mack adopts an inquiry-based approach to science learning and provides content that is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. Mosa Mack arranges its science content into units each of which is comprised of three lessons that ‘progress upwards on Blooms Taxonomy and the the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) chart.Additionally, each lesson comes with a number of hands-on activities and several other materials (e.g graphic organizers, PowerPoint presentations, assessments, lesson plans…etc).
The Concord Consortium has hundreds of science activities and computer simulations best used with middle and high school students. Teachers can use the site to find tasks aligned to their standards, push assignments out to their students, and track student progress. By assigning a task to their class, teachers can view written responses that students provide throughout an activity. Activities are organized by discipline in the life, engineering, physical, and earth sciences.
BioInteractive provides access to a treasure trove of educational materials to use in science classes. You will find multimedia materials, videos, interactives, classroom activities, teacher guides, virtual labs and many other resources. In Holiday Lectures, for instance, you will get introduced to a series of lectures covering different scientific topics presented by leading scientists. The Short Films section features a number of ‘broadcast-quality films designed to engage students. Each one tells a different scientific story and is supported by supplemental resources including teacher guides and activities.’
Inq-ITS a science learning platform with simulations for Physical, Life, and Earth Science - all aligned with NGSS standards. Students show what they know and educators get real-time, actionable data to inform whole class instruction or one-on-one support. Rex, the virtual coach, gives students personalized assistance to help students conduct inquiry.’ Watch this video to learn more about Inq-ITS.
NOVA Labs, a groundbreaking new digital platform where “citizen scientists” can actively participate in the scientific process by visualizing, analyzing, and sharing the same data that scientists use during real-world investigations—from predicting solar storms and designing renewable energy systems to learning cybersecurity strategies. In the classroom,
“Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms.”The goal of the project is to design, test, and disseminate new instructional models and digital media tools that will enable science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning. Earth science content consists of interactive lessons and modules developed by WGBH in collaboration with NASA, with input from a national group of 50 representative teacher advisors with diverse backgrounds and pedagogical approaches. The engaging and interactive tools have been designed for diverse learners. They feature innovative media formats that draw on the unique assets from NASA—including satellite images and data visualizations—and videos drawn from WGBH’s signature programs, such as NOVA and PEEP & The Big Wide World. The Earth science modules address content covered in kindergarten through grade 12, focusing on topics such as weather, climate, land, and water.
Scientist in the Classroom provides a platform for teachers and scientists to collaborate as colleagues, peers, and partners in furthering science education. While scientists can act as a resource for teachers and students, in turn teachers and students can help scientists better understand how to convey their work to a larger, more diverse, and often skeptical audience to give scientists a better understanding of the challenges teachers face when presenting these often socially contentious and misunderstood topics.
Mystery Science for elementary teachers. Created by a science teacher, Mystery Science provides a wide variety of lessons to enhance your students learning of science and engage them in hands-on activities focused around a given Mystery. Every activity is designed around simple supplies which ’you should already have in the classroom or around your home.’ Each Mystery revolves around a hands-on activity and comes with a number of short videos and discussions
EcoMOBILE a project of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, uses virtual elements that intersect with real-world experiences to teach middle school students about ecosystem science and the complex factors that contribute to a natural habitat. EcoMOBILE grew out of EcoMUVE, a four-week curriculum that lets students explore virtual ecosystems on their computers. Whereas EcoMUVE teaches students in the classroom about how different elements of an ecosystem affect one another over time, EcoMOBILE guides students out in the field. EcoMOBILE links the fieldtrip to classwork by providing a record of what students explored and the data they collected. Students then take that information back into the classroom to discuss it, analyze it, and see photosynthesis happening. A third phase of the EcoLearn program, called EcoXPT. With EcoXPT, students go beyond making observations to actually conducting simulated experiments using virtual experimental tools.
Ecoregions is an interactive map produced by Resolve for the purpose of showing the ecoregions and biomes of the world. When you visit the map you can choose to display either ecoregions or biomes. After you make that selection you can then click on any location on the map to discover the ecoregion or biome of that location. www.freetech4teacers.com
ExploreLearning Gizmos provides over 400 math and science online simulations that power inquiry and understanding. It has a free Gizmos account available for science and math educators with a curated collection of Gizmos that change every January/July. Each Gizmo comes with teacher guides and customizable lesson materials. Some of the major features of Gizmos include: interactive design which allows for extensive manipulation of variables and ‘what-if’ experimentation; visualizations and graphing tools help capture and compare results from experiments; in-depth activities create more moments to explore, discover and apply new concepts.
Smithsonian Science for Global Goals is a new, freely available curriculum that uses the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development as a framework to focus on sustainable actions to local problems, defined and implemented by students. The curriculum was developed to be region and grade-level agnostic so that any student between the ages of 8 and 17 will be able to engage in the material. Among the tentative topics are “Energy” (How do we balance energy and environmental concerns?), “Weather and People” (How do we balance economics and preparedness?), “Biotechnology and Humans” (How do we balance technology, actions, and ethics?), and “Access” (How do we balance support for individuals with special needs?). Students have the opportunity to learn firsthand from researchers who are working on these problems around the world. Students then engage in inquiry-based challenges in their local communities, considering the problems through multiple perspectives (social, ethical, economic, environmental).
Stop Disasters! ( gr 7 - 12 ) Game Few other browser-based sims better illustrate the potential of gaming for learning about serious issues in our world.
Earth Science Reading Comprehension is designed for elementary readers and includes short passages.
Earth and Beyond From The Children's University of Manchester there is are interactive animations.
Nuskool This is a site that uses pop culture as teaching moments for students. Tailored to grades 6th-12th students learn a variety of subjects such as: Math, Science, English, etc through educational lessons based on the different elements of pop culture (video games, sports, films, etc.).
Introduction to Landforms: the Earth's changing shape 2nd grade
Our Little Earth is a nice site that provides bi-weekly summaries of the world's biggest news stories. The summaries are written for students. Each edition includes video clips along with the stories. In each edition you'll find stories appropriate for use in social studies, math, and science lessons. You may also find stories about the arts, entertainment, and popular culture. A few "did you know" questions appear in each issue as well. An archive containing every edition going back to 2007 is available too.
The Interactive Library Applets for Math, Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry & Earth Science (6-12)
http://edinfo.securesites.net/il/il_math.htm
The Interactive Library is about "real interactivity"! The database contains hundreds of activities that make use of sophisticated java, vrml and shockwave programs. Teachers can create their own activity sheet to go with the programs. Students can use these programs to supplement their classroom activities, or use one of the more advanced applets as a starting point for their science project.
FreezeRay (4-12)
http://freezeray.com/index.html
This site offers a growing bank of imaginative, highly visual teaching-aids developed for use with interactive whiteboards in schools. The resources are designed to be used as rich sources of visually stimulating material, making use of both animations and drag and drop interactivity.
Kineticcity is developed by the American Association for The Advancement of Science . Kineticcity provides some of the amazing collection of science experiments, games, activities, and challenges.
Clue Into Climate: Exploring The Causes of Climate Change Learn about the science of climate change–from what greenhouse gases are to how they warm the Earth–and hear from people whose work helps us understand our changing planet. This collection explores the causes of climate change, its impacts on freshwater and ecosystems, and strategies for curbing and adapting to climate change.
Teach Climate Network provides teaching tips, resources, inspiration, and community networking with educators from all disciplines, grade levels, and educational settings
Mapping Extreme Heat EAT.gov website is a National Integrated Heat Health Information System. You can find a wide variety of heat-tracking tools online. What’s amazing is how many provide learners with access to a way to map the heat. Some tools like the Climate Change Tracker, allow you to enter a zip code and see the heat index:
Climate Learning Resources Portal
Climate Literacy & Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) (cleanet.org) CLEAN provides easy to read explanations of science and policy, designed to step students through key principles of climate and energy.
Dr. Deb L. Morrison’s Climate Justice Resource Collection (debmorrison.me/resources/climate-justice-and-learning) This website Dr. Morrison’s ever growing collection of digital resources that can be leveraged to support justice centered climate change education.
New Jersey’s Climate Change Education Resources (nj.gov/education/standards/climate) Professional learning and instructional specifically focused on evidence-based climate change education
Washington’s Climate Science Education Resources (https://www.oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/87152/overview) Professional learning and instructional resources developed through or used in the state ClimeTime initiative focused on evidence-based climate science education.
Climate Mapping for Resilence The government website designed to help Americans face the challenges of extreme weather and other hazards arising from climate change. The new portal provides real-time information on climate related hazards currently effecting the United States and also information which can help will communities, cities and states states plan for the future impacts of global heating and climate change.
The Climate Portal from MIT has lots of relatively accessible text “explainers” about different aspects of climate change.
Video: “See what three degrees of global warming looks like”
Our Beautiful Planet website. Each seeks to showcase climate science research. Videos are five to seven minutes long and include classroom lesson plans.
NASA’s Climate Time Machine offers a sobering look at changes in the following areas:
- Sea Ice
- Sea Level
- Carbon Dioxide
- Global Temperature
- Ice Sheets
- Ocean Warming
A third of Americans are already facing above-average warming is from The Guardian.
Who is Damaging The Climate Most
How Climate Change Fuels Deadly Conflict
NASA's Climate Kids website has many excellent online and offline resources for teaching students about climate change. One of those resources is the Big Questions page. The Big Questions page guides students through the basic concepts and issues related to climate change. Six big questions are featured on the page. Students select a question to discover the answers through the exploration of a series of smaller questions. Each question is addressed with a mix of image, text, and video explanations. www.freeteck4teachers.com
6 INTERACTIVE TOOLS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE CLIMATE CRISIS
The race to zero: can America reach net-zero emissions by 2050? is from The Guardian.
What was the CO2 when you were born?
Heartbeat of the Earth A series of online artworks interpreting climate data.
Teach About Climate Change With These 24 New York Times Graphs
Climate Change Education is a middle and high school climate change curriculum from Stanford.
The American Educator has an issue on climate change.
PhET simulation is about the greenhouse effect. The simulation can be used to help students understand the effect of greenhouse gases and clouds on sunlight, infrared radiation, and surface temperature. And students can use the simulation to compare and contrast the behavior of sunlight and infrared radiation. www.freetech4teachers.com
Clue Into Climate: Exploring The Causes of Climate Change Learn about the science of climate change–from what greenhouse gases are to how they warm the Earth–and hear from people whose work helps us understand our changing planet. This collection explores the causes of climate change, its impacts on freshwater and ecosystems, and strategies for curbing and adapting to climate change.
A third of Americans are already facing above-average warming is from The Guardian.
Who is Damaging The Climate Most
How Climate Change Fuels Deadly Conflict
Students want climate change lessons. Schools aren’t ready is from The L.A. Times.
Surging Seas interactive.Type in the name of any coastal location in the United States, and you’ll see what the future holds.
- The Climate Change Tracker shows which countries are most responsible for contributing to climate change.
- A teachable moment: educators must join students in demanding climate justice is from The Guardian.
- Is Climate Change a Big Deal? shows how much have temperatures changed in cities across the US.
HHMI's BioInteractive is a good place for all science teachers to search for science lesson plans, videos, animations, and slideshows to use with students. You can search the BioInteractive library according to topic, keyword, or resource type
Weather - Climate Change
Discover Your World is a free activity book produced by NOAA. The book is available as to download as a complete package in one PDF or you can download it in three separate sections. The sections are titled Explore the Earth, Understand the Earth, and Protect the Earth. In total the book has 43 activities appropriate for most K-12 classrooms but the majority of the activities seem to be most appropriate for grades four through eight.
Weather Lab is a simple online activity designed to help elementary and middle school students learn about weather patterns. In the Weather Lab students select an ocean current and an air mass then try to predict the weather pattern that will result from their choices. The Weather Lab provides an overview of the characteristics of each air mass and ocean current. www.freetech4teachers.com
List of Best Sites and Videos About Climate Change
Crash Course Astronomy: Tides
Walter's Travels - Weathering and Erosion on National Geographic's website. Here's a short video overview of the game. www.freetech4teachers.com
Weather & Climate (gr.6-8) instructional modules explore Earth's systems. Each media-rich module contains tools and supports designed to engage diverse learners in core ideas and practices.
The Best Sites To Introduce Environmental Issues Into The Classroom,
he Best Resources On Teens Demanding An Effective Response To Climate Change
The Best Online Carbon Calculators
Infographic “Visualizing Global Per Capita CO2 Emissions”
Weather 2050 is a new interactive from Vox that lets you see what the average winter and summer temperature is predicted to me in your town in ….2050.
Interactive Lesson: Mountains and Rain Shadows. (gr 6 - 8) Students explore how climate conditions can be completely different on either side of a mountain range, and use digital tools to create their own model illustrating how rain shadows form. This online experience incorporates media and interactive tasks, such as taking notes and filling in diagrams to support the learning of specifc earth science concepts and practices.
Wild Weather Kitchen Experiments is a short series of instructional videos produced by The Open University. Each of the four videos in the series features a short lesson followed by directions for an experiment that you can carry out to see the lesson's concepts in action. The four lessons are on avalanches, tornadoes, floods, and dust storms.
The Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction (READI) Project, a multi-institutional initiative headed by the University of Illinois at Chicago, supports disciplinary argumentation from multiple sources in middle school and high school science and history/social studies classes The website provides links to integrative curriculum modules developed as part of the project. For example, “Life Sciences: The Spread of MRSA” (versioned for grades 6 and 9) supports science students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices while building their knowledge of evolution, microbes, and antibiotic resistance. Similarly, the module “Earth Science: How Are Humans Impacting Water?” (for grade 8) supports students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices in science while building knowledge of water resources and pollution. The “Reading Science Modules” (for grades 6 and 9) support students’ close reading of science visuals and models while building knowledge about the conventions of scientific models and the criteria for evaluating them. Each module includes a freely downloadable interactive notebook with integrated texts, tasks, scaffolds, and routines, along with an annotated teacher guide.
Regional Patterns of Climate (gr 6-8) lesson plans and their associated media
The Climate Time Machine is another interesting resource to teach students about how climate change impacts areas over time.
Interactive Weather
Teaching with Maps website provides K–12 cross-curricular lessons and activities on integrating visual learning, spatial thinking, and quantitative skills. Educators can browse or search activities by category (K–8, 9–12, AP/IB/Honors) and refine results by resource type, subject, and grade level. Links provide collections of lessons in climate and energy, earth science, geoscience data, Mars, microbes, and more. A section for professional development includes teaching strategies. Click Here to Access Free Lesson Collection
Weather Lab students select an ocean current and an air mass then try to predict the weather pattern that will result from their choices. The Weather Lab provides an overview of the characteristics of each air mass and ocean current. Students should use that information in making their weather predictions. After making their predictions the Weather Lab will tell students if they were correct or not. In the feedback given to students they will find links to videos for further learning about each weather pattern featured in the Weather Lab
SciJinks is a joint NOAA and NASA educational website that puts fun and adventure into learning about weather, satellite meteorology, and earth science. Geared toward middle school students and their educators, the website has informative articles that answer important questions about weather, timely stories about weather in the news, profiles of fun weather jobs, mobile and web games about satellites and technology, exciting videos, and tons of downloadable content.
Click and Learn app Interactively explore topics in biology with the Click and Learn app. Each module features supporting videos and animations (Internet connection required). Learn about topics in Earth history and climate change, evolution, neurobiology, infectious diseases, bioinformatics, stem cells, RNA, obesity, cancer, and genomics.
Interactive Sites for Natural Disasters K - 5
Infographic: A Hundred Years Of Deaths From Natural Disasters
The Best Websites For Learning About Natural Disasters:
Weather planning Save time preparing for a weather-themed lesson with this comprehensive plan, which looks at types of weather, weather in different countries and forecasting.
Flooding mystery activity Cut up and distribute these activity cards, then students work through the clues to identify the causes and effects of the Somerset floods.
Timelapse is an incredible visual satellite timeline powered by Google. Timelapse is about as close as you can get to a time machine, if that time machine hovered above the earth and gave you a bird’s eye view of development and change. Students can choose from some highlighted Timelapse views including: Las Vegas, Dubai, Shanghai, Oil Sands, Mendenhall Glacier, Wyoming Coal, Columbia Glacier, and Lake Urmia. Alternatively, students can use the search box to view a satellite timelapse of any place in the world. Students can change the speed of the timelapse, pause the satellite imagery, and zoom in or zoom out. The imagery begins in 1984 and goes through 2012.
Timelapse The site itself sparks lots of questions. Depending on the location, students may inquire into climate change, history, development, expansion, human impact on land, satellites, etc. Timelapse could also be used in science classes and history classes. This is a great tool for students to use to analyze and evaluate visual data.
Interactive Sites for Clouds and Water Cycle K - 5
Water Cycle Free site to download. The QuickQuest uses engaging videos and a scaffolded activity to prompt close observation, higher order thinking, personal meaning-making and reflection. And this is for Years / Grades 2-4.
Weather Lab is a simple online activity designed to help elementary and middle school students learn about weather patterns. In the Weather Lab students select an ocean current and an air mass then try to predict the weather pattern that will result from their choices. The Weather Lab provides an overview of the characteristics of each air mass and ocean current. www.freetech4teachers.com
List of Best Sites and Videos About Climate Change
- Decoding: The Weather Machine In this collection, you’ll find video resources and an interactive lesson on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.
- Surging Seas interactive.Type in the name of any coastal location in the United States, and you’ll see what the future holds.
- The Climate Change Tracker shows which countries are most responsible for contributing to climate change.
- A teachable moment: educators must join students in demanding climate justice is from The Guardian.
- Teach About Climate Change With These 24 New York Times Graphs
- Climate Change Education is a middle and high school climate change curriculum from Stanford.
- Clue Into Climate: Exploring The Causes of Climate Change Learn about the science of climate change–from what greenhouse gases are to how they warm the Earth–and hear from people whose work helps us understand our changing planet. This collection explores the causes of climate change, its impacts on freshwater and ecosystems, and strategies for curbing and adapting to climate change.
- Climate Change Education is a middle and high school climate change curriculum from Stanford.
- The American Educator has an issue on climate change.
- Students want climate change lessons. Schools aren’t ready is from The L.A. Times.
- Clue Into Climate: Exploring The Causes of Climate Change Learn about the science of climate change–from what greenhouse gases are to how they warm the Earth–and hear from people whose work helps us understand our changing planet. This collection explores the causes of climate change, its impacts on freshwater and ecosystems, and strategies for curbing and adapting to climate change.
- 6 INTERACTIVE TOOLS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE CLIMATE CRISIS
- The race to zero: can America reach net-zero emissions by 2050? is from The Guardian.
- What was the CO2 when you were born?
- Heartbeat of the Earth A series of online artworks interpreting climate data.
- Every Place Has Its Own Climate Risk. What Is It Where You Live? is an interactive from The NY Times. You click on your county, and and it will least which climate challenges face your community.
Crash Course Astronomy: Tides
Walter's Travels - Weathering and Erosion on National Geographic's website. Here's a short video overview of the game. www.freetech4teachers.com
Weather & Climate (gr.6-8) instructional modules explore Earth's systems. Each media-rich module contains tools and supports designed to engage diverse learners in core ideas and practices.
The Best Sites To Introduce Environmental Issues Into The Classroom,
he Best Resources On Teens Demanding An Effective Response To Climate Change
The Best Online Carbon Calculators
Infographic “Visualizing Global Per Capita CO2 Emissions”
Weather 2050 is a new interactive from Vox that lets you see what the average winter and summer temperature is predicted to me in your town in ….2050.
Interactive Lesson: Mountains and Rain Shadows. (gr 6 - 8) Students explore how climate conditions can be completely different on either side of a mountain range, and use digital tools to create their own model illustrating how rain shadows form. This online experience incorporates media and interactive tasks, such as taking notes and filling in diagrams to support the learning of specifc earth science concepts and practices.
Wild Weather Kitchen Experiments is a short series of instructional videos produced by The Open University. Each of the four videos in the series features a short lesson followed by directions for an experiment that you can carry out to see the lesson's concepts in action. The four lessons are on avalanches, tornadoes, floods, and dust storms.
The Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction (READI) Project, a multi-institutional initiative headed by the University of Illinois at Chicago, supports disciplinary argumentation from multiple sources in middle school and high school science and history/social studies classes The website provides links to integrative curriculum modules developed as part of the project. For example, “Life Sciences: The Spread of MRSA” (versioned for grades 6 and 9) supports science students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices while building their knowledge of evolution, microbes, and antibiotic resistance. Similarly, the module “Earth Science: How Are Humans Impacting Water?” (for grade 8) supports students’ close reading, modeling, explanation, and argumentation practices in science while building knowledge of water resources and pollution. The “Reading Science Modules” (for grades 6 and 9) support students’ close reading of science visuals and models while building knowledge about the conventions of scientific models and the criteria for evaluating them. Each module includes a freely downloadable interactive notebook with integrated texts, tasks, scaffolds, and routines, along with an annotated teacher guide.
Regional Patterns of Climate (gr 6-8) lesson plans and their associated media
- NASA: Global Climate Change- Explore the evidence, causes, and effects of climate change as well as solutions.
- Climate Kids- Looks at big questions, provides information about people, and includes fun activities to teach younger students about climate change.
- Global Warming Effects Map- Explore changes on the map on the website or in Google Earth.
- National Geographic Climate Change- Facts about climate change as well as a short video featuring Bill Nye.
- Teaching Climate Change: Lessons From the Past- Dozens of lesson plans and labs for teaching students about climate change.
- NSF Climate Change- Information on how climate change impacts the sky, land, sea, ice, life, and people.
- Climate Time Machine resource to teach students about how climate change impacts areas over time.
- NY Times Interactive Shows Impact Of Climate Change On Your Town
Weather & Climate and Story of Earth instructional modules explore Earth's systems. Each media-rich module contains tools and supports designed to engage diverse learners in core ideas and practices.
The Climate Time Machine is another interesting resource to teach students about how climate change impacts areas over time.
Interactive Weather
Teaching with Maps website provides K–12 cross-curricular lessons and activities on integrating visual learning, spatial thinking, and quantitative skills. Educators can browse or search activities by category (K–8, 9–12, AP/IB/Honors) and refine results by resource type, subject, and grade level. Links provide collections of lessons in climate and energy, earth science, geoscience data, Mars, microbes, and more. A section for professional development includes teaching strategies. Click Here to Access Free Lesson Collection
Weather Lab students select an ocean current and an air mass then try to predict the weather pattern that will result from their choices. The Weather Lab provides an overview of the characteristics of each air mass and ocean current. Students should use that information in making their weather predictions. After making their predictions the Weather Lab will tell students if they were correct or not. In the feedback given to students they will find links to videos for further learning about each weather pattern featured in the Weather Lab
SciJinks is a joint NOAA and NASA educational website that puts fun and adventure into learning about weather, satellite meteorology, and earth science. Geared toward middle school students and their educators, the website has informative articles that answer important questions about weather, timely stories about weather in the news, profiles of fun weather jobs, mobile and web games about satellites and technology, exciting videos, and tons of downloadable content.
Click and Learn app Interactively explore topics in biology with the Click and Learn app. Each module features supporting videos and animations (Internet connection required). Learn about topics in Earth history and climate change, evolution, neurobiology, infectious diseases, bioinformatics, stem cells, RNA, obesity, cancer, and genomics.
Interactive Sites for Natural Disasters K - 5
Infographic: A Hundred Years Of Deaths From Natural Disasters
The Best Websites For Learning About Natural Disasters:
Weather planning Save time preparing for a weather-themed lesson with this comprehensive plan, which looks at types of weather, weather in different countries and forecasting.
Flooding mystery activity Cut up and distribute these activity cards, then students work through the clues to identify the causes and effects of the Somerset floods.
Timelapse is an incredible visual satellite timeline powered by Google. Timelapse is about as close as you can get to a time machine, if that time machine hovered above the earth and gave you a bird’s eye view of development and change. Students can choose from some highlighted Timelapse views including: Las Vegas, Dubai, Shanghai, Oil Sands, Mendenhall Glacier, Wyoming Coal, Columbia Glacier, and Lake Urmia. Alternatively, students can use the search box to view a satellite timelapse of any place in the world. Students can change the speed of the timelapse, pause the satellite imagery, and zoom in or zoom out. The imagery begins in 1984 and goes through 2012.
Timelapse The site itself sparks lots of questions. Depending on the location, students may inquire into climate change, history, development, expansion, human impact on land, satellites, etc. Timelapse could also be used in science classes and history classes. This is a great tool for students to use to analyze and evaluate visual data.
Interactive Sites for Clouds and Water Cycle K - 5
Water Cycle Free site to download. The QuickQuest uses engaging videos and a scaffolded activity to prompt close observation, higher order thinking, personal meaning-making and reflection. And this is for Years / Grades 2-4.
Geology
Interactive Sites for Rocks and Minerals K-5
K-5 GeoSource is a resource produced by the American Geosciences Institute. On K-5 GeoSource you will find free lesson plans, science fair project ideas, links to virtual activities, and resources for professional development. The site has improved of late to make it easier to find the materials you want. A few of the resources that I looked at were this free chart about types of rocks, a science fair project guide, and a short Geoscientist career guide. The most useful aspect of the site might be the science fair project guide that you and your students could work through to plan a hands-on Earth science project. www.freetech4teachers.com
Interactive Sites for Volcanoes K - 5
Volcanoes Earth and Space Sciences Age Levels Primary (5 to 8 years old), Elementary (9 to 12 years old)Explore volcanic eruptions and their effect on rock formations through real-world sources and data and meet Smithsonian experts in the field. This collection includes instructional strategy, student activities, assessment, and extension ideas. Organization is made visible by divider tabs indicating such components as concept understanding, Project Zero thinking routines, and calls to action
Earth Exploration Toolbook Developed by teams of scientists and educators, the Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET) is a collection of online Earth system science activities. Each activity, or chapter, introduces one or more scientific data sets and analysis tools that enables users to explore some aspect of the Earth system.
Interactive Sites for Natural Disasters K - 5
Story of Earth (gr 6-8) PBS instructional modules explore Earth's systems. Each media-rich module contains tools and supports designed to engage diverse learners in core ideas and practices.
Earth's Ever-Changing Surface (gr.6-8) lesson plans and their associated media
Earthquakes 101 is a short video introduction to the causes of earthquakes. The video is accompanied by a vocabulary list, a few "fast facts," and some discussion questions. After showing the video use the National Geographic Map Maker to illustrate the relationship of tectonic plates, fault lines, and seismic activity. To create this illustration select "themes," then "physical systems - land," then select the earthquakes and plate tectonics layers. This combination will show the seismic activity layer on top of the colored plate tectonics layer.
Oreo activity with plate boundaries
Plate Tectonics and a Search Lesson. www.freetech4teachers.comNational Geographic “101 Videos” Explore and experience some of nature’s most intriguing phenomena in the 101 series, a science class unlike any other.
Timelapse is an incredible visual satellite timeline powered by Google. Timelapse is about as close as you can get to a time machine, if that time machine hovered above the earth and gave you a bird’s eye view of development and change. Students can choose from some highlighted Timelapse views including: Las Vegas, Dubai, Shanghai, Oil Sands, Mendenhall Glacier, Wyoming Coal, Columbia Glacier, and Lake Urmia. Alternatively, students can use the search box to view a satellite timelapse of any place in the world. Students can change the speed of the timelapse, pause the satellite imagery, and zoom in or zoom out. The imagery begins in 1984 and goes through 2012.
Timelapse The site itself sparks lots of questions. Depending on the location, students may inquire into climate change, history, development, expansion, human impact on land, satellites, etc. Timelapse could also be used in science classes and history classes. This is a great tool for students to use to analyze and evaluate visual data.
K-5 GeoSource is a resource produced by the American Geosciences Institute. On K-5 GeoSource you will find free lesson plans, science fair project ideas, links to virtual activities, and resources for professional development. The site has improved of late to make it easier to find the materials you want. A few of the resources that I looked at were this free chart about types of rocks, a science fair project guide, and a short Geoscientist career guide. The most useful aspect of the site might be the science fair project guide that you and your students could work through to plan a hands-on Earth science project. www.freetech4teachers.com
Interactive Sites for Volcanoes K - 5
Volcanoes Earth and Space Sciences Age Levels Primary (5 to 8 years old), Elementary (9 to 12 years old)Explore volcanic eruptions and their effect on rock formations through real-world sources and data and meet Smithsonian experts in the field. This collection includes instructional strategy, student activities, assessment, and extension ideas. Organization is made visible by divider tabs indicating such components as concept understanding, Project Zero thinking routines, and calls to action
Earth Exploration Toolbook Developed by teams of scientists and educators, the Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET) is a collection of online Earth system science activities. Each activity, or chapter, introduces one or more scientific data sets and analysis tools that enables users to explore some aspect of the Earth system.
Interactive Sites for Natural Disasters K - 5
Story of Earth (gr 6-8) PBS instructional modules explore Earth's systems. Each media-rich module contains tools and supports designed to engage diverse learners in core ideas and practices.
Earth's Ever-Changing Surface (gr.6-8) lesson plans and their associated media
Earthquakes 101 is a short video introduction to the causes of earthquakes. The video is accompanied by a vocabulary list, a few "fast facts," and some discussion questions. After showing the video use the National Geographic Map Maker to illustrate the relationship of tectonic plates, fault lines, and seismic activity. To create this illustration select "themes," then "physical systems - land," then select the earthquakes and plate tectonics layers. This combination will show the seismic activity layer on top of the colored plate tectonics layer.
Oreo activity with plate boundaries
Plate Tectonics and a Search Lesson. www.freetech4teachers.comNational Geographic “101 Videos” Explore and experience some of nature’s most intriguing phenomena in the 101 series, a science class unlike any other.
Timelapse is an incredible visual satellite timeline powered by Google. Timelapse is about as close as you can get to a time machine, if that time machine hovered above the earth and gave you a bird’s eye view of development and change. Students can choose from some highlighted Timelapse views including: Las Vegas, Dubai, Shanghai, Oil Sands, Mendenhall Glacier, Wyoming Coal, Columbia Glacier, and Lake Urmia. Alternatively, students can use the search box to view a satellite timelapse of any place in the world. Students can change the speed of the timelapse, pause the satellite imagery, and zoom in or zoom out. The imagery begins in 1984 and goes through 2012.
Timelapse The site itself sparks lots of questions. Depending on the location, students may inquire into climate change, history, development, expansion, human impact on land, satellites, etc. Timelapse could also be used in science classes and history classes. This is a great tool for students to use to analyze and evaluate visual data.
Marco Polo Oceans K - 5 Make dolphins jump. Build a coral reef. Explore the deep sea. Create your own aquarium. These are just some of the fun things you can do with MarcoPolo Ocean, a “digital sandbox” for kids to play in that sparks their interest in the most unexplored part of our planet – the ocean.
Coral Reefs and Climate Change Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access Life Sciences Age Levels Primary (5 to 8 years old), Elementary (9 to 12 years old) Explore coral reefs and climate change through real-world sources and data and meet Smithsonian experts in the field. This collection includes instructional strategy, student activities, assessment, and extension ideas. Organization is made visible by divider tabs indicating such components as concept understanding, Project Zero thinking routines, and calls to action.
Sites For Learning About The World’s Oceans.
How Do Ocean Currents Work? is a TED-Ed lesson that makes a fantastic addition to TED-Ed's list of lessons about oceans. The list now has 25 lessons covering a range of ocean-related topics including how waves are formed, the depths of oceans, and lessons about marine life.
Ocean School (OS) is a free, state-of-the-art learning experience that provides the next generation of ocean citizens, innovators, and decision makers with the knowledge and tools to investigate and design innovative solutions for the accelerating challenges that face the world’s oceans. Designed for inquiry and collaboration, Ocean School lets students take the lead, ask questions, and build knowledge. OS guides the learner through immersive media using virtual reality, augmented reality, 360-degree cinema, and more to explore and foster a deep engagement with ocean science.
Ocean STEM Activities5, 4, 3, 2, 1! There are 5 oceans 4 (for) our students to explore in these 3 fun ocean activities consisting of 2 science experiments and 1 art project.
Videos on Effects of Climate Change on the OceansThe New England Aquarium’s Blue Impact video series expands students’ knowledge of climate change and helps students draw connections between climate change and changes in the oceans. The videos present the challenges ocean animals face from global climate change and describe how communities are working together to make a difference for the blue planet.The aquarium’s website also hosts Take Action! videos and a freely downloadable Glossary, as well as student sheets and teacher answer keys to accompany each video.
Climate Kids online games address include recycling, renewable energy, and climate history. Before students jump into the games or hands-on activities featured on Climate Kids students should work through the guided big questions wheel. The guided questions wheel walks students through the basic concepts and issues related to climate change. Six questions are featured in the wheel. Students select a question to discover the answers through the exploration of a series of smaller questions. Each question is addressed with a mix of image, text, and video explanations.
How Do Ocean Currents Work? is a TED-Ed lesson that makes a fantastic addition to TED-Ed's list of lessons about oceans. The list now has 25 lessons covering a range of ocean-related topics including how waves are formed, the depths of oceans, and lessons about marine life.
Video: “Why is the ocean in deep trouble?
Infographic: “The Oceans Are Getting Warmer”
Ocean School (OS) is a free, state-of-the-art learning experience that provides the next generation of ocean citizens, innovators, and decision makers with the knowledge and tools to investigate and design innovative solutions for the accelerating challenges that face the world’s oceans. Designed for inquiry and collaboration, Ocean School lets students take the lead, ask questions, and build knowledge. OS guides the learner through immersive media using virtual reality, augmented reality, 360-degree cinema, and more to explore and foster a deep engagement with ocean science.
Virtual underwater ecosystem to allow students to observe firsthand what coral reefs are expected to look like by the end of the century if carbon dioxide emissions are not curbed. The researchers have designed an educational experience that makes the impossible possible: students can watch the ocean absorb invisible carbon dioxide molecules, a coral reef degrade, and marine life disappear as the ocean acidifies. Each step in the journey is based on decades of marine science research. This experience is free to download and can be viewed on the HTC Vive.
Marine Missions iPad - A bright and colorful game that teaches children about water conservation and the animals that live in the ocean.
Resources For Teaching & Learning About World Water Conservation Includes resources for International Water Day in March
Ocean Science. free app is full of beautiful pictures and rich information about ocean life. You and your students will learn all about the power of the ocean and why it’s considered the final frontier.
Perpetual OceanPerpetual Ocean is a NASA video showing ocean currents over a two year period. I'm adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Oceans.
Video: "Why Is The Ocean Blue?
Video: "Why the ocean is getting louder
Coral Reefs and Climate Change Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access Life Sciences Age Levels Primary (5 to 8 years old), Elementary (9 to 12 years old) Explore coral reefs and climate change through real-world sources and data and meet Smithsonian experts in the field. This collection includes instructional strategy, student activities, assessment, and extension ideas. Organization is made visible by divider tabs indicating such components as concept understanding, Project Zero thinking routines, and calls to action.
Sites For Learning About The World’s Oceans.
How Do Ocean Currents Work? is a TED-Ed lesson that makes a fantastic addition to TED-Ed's list of lessons about oceans. The list now has 25 lessons covering a range of ocean-related topics including how waves are formed, the depths of oceans, and lessons about marine life.
Ocean School (OS) is a free, state-of-the-art learning experience that provides the next generation of ocean citizens, innovators, and decision makers with the knowledge and tools to investigate and design innovative solutions for the accelerating challenges that face the world’s oceans. Designed for inquiry and collaboration, Ocean School lets students take the lead, ask questions, and build knowledge. OS guides the learner through immersive media using virtual reality, augmented reality, 360-degree cinema, and more to explore and foster a deep engagement with ocean science.
Ocean STEM Activities5, 4, 3, 2, 1! There are 5 oceans 4 (for) our students to explore in these 3 fun ocean activities consisting of 2 science experiments and 1 art project.
Videos on Effects of Climate Change on the OceansThe New England Aquarium’s Blue Impact video series expands students’ knowledge of climate change and helps students draw connections between climate change and changes in the oceans. The videos present the challenges ocean animals face from global climate change and describe how communities are working together to make a difference for the blue planet.The aquarium’s website also hosts Take Action! videos and a freely downloadable Glossary, as well as student sheets and teacher answer keys to accompany each video.
Climate Kids online games address include recycling, renewable energy, and climate history. Before students jump into the games or hands-on activities featured on Climate Kids students should work through the guided big questions wheel. The guided questions wheel walks students through the basic concepts and issues related to climate change. Six questions are featured in the wheel. Students select a question to discover the answers through the exploration of a series of smaller questions. Each question is addressed with a mix of image, text, and video explanations.
How Do Ocean Currents Work? is a TED-Ed lesson that makes a fantastic addition to TED-Ed's list of lessons about oceans. The list now has 25 lessons covering a range of ocean-related topics including how waves are formed, the depths of oceans, and lessons about marine life.
Video: “Why is the ocean in deep trouble?
Infographic: “The Oceans Are Getting Warmer”
Ocean School (OS) is a free, state-of-the-art learning experience that provides the next generation of ocean citizens, innovators, and decision makers with the knowledge and tools to investigate and design innovative solutions for the accelerating challenges that face the world’s oceans. Designed for inquiry and collaboration, Ocean School lets students take the lead, ask questions, and build knowledge. OS guides the learner through immersive media using virtual reality, augmented reality, 360-degree cinema, and more to explore and foster a deep engagement with ocean science.
Virtual underwater ecosystem to allow students to observe firsthand what coral reefs are expected to look like by the end of the century if carbon dioxide emissions are not curbed. The researchers have designed an educational experience that makes the impossible possible: students can watch the ocean absorb invisible carbon dioxide molecules, a coral reef degrade, and marine life disappear as the ocean acidifies. Each step in the journey is based on decades of marine science research. This experience is free to download and can be viewed on the HTC Vive.
Marine Missions iPad - A bright and colorful game that teaches children about water conservation and the animals that live in the ocean.
Resources For Teaching & Learning About World Water Conservation Includes resources for International Water Day in March
Ocean Science. free app is full of beautiful pictures and rich information about ocean life. You and your students will learn all about the power of the ocean and why it’s considered the final frontier.
Perpetual OceanPerpetual Ocean is a NASA video showing ocean currents over a two year period. I'm adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Oceans.
Video: "Why Is The Ocean Blue?
Video: "Why the ocean is getting louder
Videos
Scishow This is one of the most popular science channels in YouTube. SciShow discusses science news and history and concepts.
The USGS Multimedia Gallery Offers Excellent Public Domain Images and Videos The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, audio recordings, pictures, and slideshows. As you might expect, you'll also find lots of maps in the USGS multimedia gallery. You can browse and search the gallery according to media type, year of publication, and keyword. In addition to the videos in the USGS Multimedia Gallery you can find many videos on the official USGS YouTube channel. If you need images or videos to help you deliver a lesson to your Earth Science students, the USGS Multimedia Gallery should be one of the first places you visit. Likewise students developing multimedia presentations for their Earth Science classes would be well-served to visit the USGS Multimedia Gallery. www.freetech4teachers.com
Earth from Space Spectacular NOVA documentary about the earth's interconnected web.
Science of Everyday Life (K-12) On the site you will find videos and interactives that help kids learn about the science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school. Lessons are inquiry based and encourage exploration in life science, physical science, earth science and technology/innovation. Virtual labs are interactive flash-based labs where students can discover more about science like wind energy. At the Innovation HQ portion of the site, students can travel through time and look at innovations that they use in their every day life and “meet” 3M scientists. It is packed with videos, lesson ideas, virtual interactives and student activities. The lessons include great resources and encourage students to ask questions and dig deeper. Content is separated out by grade level, quickly find exactly what best fits your classroom needs!
Glean - Ever feel overwhelmed by all the educational videos online? Aided by a team of teachers, this service chooses and catalogs the best videos.
Reactions Everyday Science is a YouTube channel that provides illustrative tutorials and videos on different scientific events.
Science Daily popular science news web sites. With over 65,000 research articles, 15,000 images, 2,500 encyclopedia entries, 1,500 book reviews, and hundreds of educational videos, there is something for everyone on ScienceDaily.
New York Times Science Page features a wide variety of short video covering an array of scientific phenomena. Videos are arranged int mean categories: Science Take and CreatureCast.
HHMI's BioInteractive is a good place for all science teachers to search for science lesson plans, videos, animations, and slideshows to use with students. You can search the BioInteractive library according to topic, keyword, or resource type.
The USGS Multimedia Gallery Offers Excellent Public Domain Images and Videos The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, audio recordings, pictures, and slideshows. As you might expect, you'll also find lots of maps in the USGS multimedia gallery. You can browse and search the gallery according to media type, year of publication, and keyword. In addition to the videos in the USGS Multimedia Gallery you can find many videos on the official USGS YouTube channel. If you need images or videos to help you deliver a lesson to your Earth Science students, the USGS Multimedia Gallery should be one of the first places you visit. Likewise students developing multimedia presentations for their Earth Science classes would be well-served to visit the USGS Multimedia Gallery. www.freetech4teachers.com
Earth from Space Spectacular NOVA documentary about the earth's interconnected web.
Science of Everyday Life (K-12) On the site you will find videos and interactives that help kids learn about the science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school. Lessons are inquiry based and encourage exploration in life science, physical science, earth science and technology/innovation. Virtual labs are interactive flash-based labs where students can discover more about science like wind energy. At the Innovation HQ portion of the site, students can travel through time and look at innovations that they use in their every day life and “meet” 3M scientists. It is packed with videos, lesson ideas, virtual interactives and student activities. The lessons include great resources and encourage students to ask questions and dig deeper. Content is separated out by grade level, quickly find exactly what best fits your classroom needs!
Glean - Ever feel overwhelmed by all the educational videos online? Aided by a team of teachers, this service chooses and catalogs the best videos.
Reactions Everyday Science is a YouTube channel that provides illustrative tutorials and videos on different scientific events.
Science Daily popular science news web sites. With over 65,000 research articles, 15,000 images, 2,500 encyclopedia entries, 1,500 book reviews, and hundreds of educational videos, there is something for everyone on ScienceDaily.
New York Times Science Page features a wide variety of short video covering an array of scientific phenomena. Videos are arranged int mean categories: Science Take and CreatureCast.
HHMI's BioInteractive is a good place for all science teachers to search for science lesson plans, videos, animations, and slideshows to use with students. You can search the BioInteractive library according to topic, keyword, or resource type.