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Coal Formation
Learners perform an in-depth study of coal - one of most important fossil fuels. Over a three-week period of time, they become familiar with how coal is formed underground, and will create a "fossil" right there in the classroom in order...
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Incorporating 3D Visualizations into Your Classroom
Students make observations through 3-D visualizations. They explore scientific and geologic processes through the use of 3-D pictures.
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Sequence of Events: The Watershed
Class members simulate a watershed with a painters drop cloth, placing objects underneath to create landscape variation, making "rain" with a watering can, and using red drink mix powder to track the path of precipitation. They observe...
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Fossil Fuels Summary
As the title suggests, this is a simply summary of fossil fuels. There are no questions to answer or problems to solve, just notes about fossil fuels. The notes cover how fossil fuels are formed, how we extract it, what humans use it...
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Weather or Not
Hypothetical meteorologists' quotes help young earth scientists become acclimated to weather vocabulary. The terms are all related to air masses and forms of precipitation. This is a fun way to discover if your learners are truly...
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Using Waves on the Job!
A colorful and comprehensive PowerPoint highlights this lesson plan on waves. Junior geophysicists pretend that they are hired to analyze seismic waves. A worksheet is provided to go along with an online article about how compact discs...
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Ocean Commotion Activity - Dioramas
Groups make a model of an Ocean Commotion exhibit based on what they saw during the fieldtrip. These dioramas can be used as an informal assessment of student knowledge acquired at Ocean Commotion.
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Get Physically Active
Students discover the importance of water. In this physical education science instructional activity, students consider mental and physical activities. Students find their pulse and measure their heart rate. Students discuss the...
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Seas in Motion
Young scholars analyze wave movement. In this Science instructional activity, students use items that float to observe waves and currents. Young scholars record and discuss their observations.
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Food Chain Checkers
Young scholars model the food chain. In this activity, students play a game resembling checkers that simulates the food chain within the ocean. Young scholars make changes to the game to better represent how the food chain operates.
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Finding Ocean Depth
How to oceanographers measure the sea's depth? Your scientists will step into their shoes in this application learning exercise, first reading about how the speed of sound and a simple formula give scientists a depth estimation. Students...
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Winter Wonderland - Winter Olympics and the Water Cycle
After a concise introduction to the water cycle, junior meteorologists access NOAA's average snowfall data. They choose a city to examine in terms of precipitation. Then they look at historical snowfall data and use it to predict snow...
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Build a Model Submarine
Learners form lab groups and work together to construct a submarine out of a soda bottle. Next, they observe its action in a tub of water as the inner pressure is changed. It is an engaging experiment. However, links to outside resources...
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Tides - The Ins and Outs of Tides
Get your junior oceanographers to generate tidal prediction graphs on an interactive website. They will feel like experts in the field, or shall we say, experts in the ocean! This is a brief, but worthwhile activity that could be used to...
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Volcanoes!: The Mountain Blows its Top
Students observe two demonstrations to conclude why bulge developed on the north flank of Mount St. Helens and conclude that when the "cap" was removed the pressure inside the volcano was suddenly released causing the violent eruption.
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Volcanoes!: Forecasting the Path of Mudflows
Students construct a mockup of a volcano by crumbling up newspapers and piling them into the shape of a volcano. They place a tarp over the newspapers making sure the tarp is large enough to simulate a flat area at the volcano's base....
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Volcanoes!: The Dangers of Snow and Ice
Students observe a demonstration of how melting snow and ice can contribute to mudflows. They then observea list of continents with the number of snow and ice covered mountains on each continent and discuss. They then label a group of...
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Volcanoes!: Eyewitness Accounts
Students review previous lessons about volcanoes and name the phenomena they think the eyewitnesses of the Mount St. Helens witnessed. They play the roles of reporter, eyewitness and scientists who are serving on a committee...
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Land and People: Cape Cod Activity 1
Young scholars make a model aquifer to study the uniqueness of Cape Cod's ground-water system. Using the model., they determine how easily contamination spreads in the aquifer system by completing and recording three activities. Using...
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Our Disastrous World
Young scholars explore natural disasters around the world from the experiences of other students, friends and families. They collaborate with countries such as Japan, China, India, Australia, Russia, Great Britain as well as from the...
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Sand Explorations
Students experiment with different samples of sand from Maui leeward and windward beaches. They create a sand map to suggest at least one contributing factor for the formation of each beach sample. They test the samples to determine...
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Finding Epicenters
In this earthquake worksheet, students use the seismographs from different locations to determine the epicenter for the earthquake. Students plot the epicenter on a map. This worksheet has 1 graphic organizer.
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Rocks and Minerals
Students investigate the properties and uses of rocks and minerals. They build towers using only one material from a pile of stones, tiles, wood, etc. provided by the teacher. Students test the hardness of rocks by scratching them with...
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How Volcanoes Grow
Students create models of the three major types of volcanoes and determine how a volcano's shape is related to the type of material erupted. They then observe a demonstration that simulates the nature of two volcanic materials: lava and...