Lead your class in exploring their local communities as well as the general environment. As they determine continental distributions by investigating minerals, rocks, and fossils located in their local region, pupils construct...

Students hypothesize about why various samples of coal have different characteristics. Pupils use information that they found during Internet searches to ascertain the validity of their hypotheses and verify the "story" of coal. ...

Do not overlook this set of lessons just because your school does not have a data analysis system. There is plenty of material here to administer a complete mini unit on the formation, distribution, and properties of coal. Since it...

Take young scientists into the depths of the world's ocean with the second lesson of this three-part earth science series. After first drawing pictures representing how they imagine the bottom of the ocean to appear, students...

Students complete a narrative paper and a drawing depicting how the formation of oil and natural gas taken from the Earth's crust were once plants and animals millions of years ago. In this oil and natural gas lesson plan, students read,...

Ninth graders demonstrate the forces that cause folds in the earths crust by use of clay modeling. They demonstrate there knowledge of terminology and concepts related to Earths folding processes by a written or oral report on data...

Give young geologists an up close and personal look at volcanoes with a series of hands-on earth science lessons. Whether they are investigating the properties of igneous rocks, building their own volcanoes, or making...

Heat things up in your earth science class with this collaborative lesson on volcanoes. After first being introduced to the different types of volcanoes and how they are formed, young geologists work in small groups to...

Fourth graders discuss the different interactions of plates and the ways mountains are created.  For this plate tectonics lesson students complete an activity in groups.

More of a mini-unit than a lesson, these activities lead inquisitors through a survey of oil deposits. In the first part, they read about and view diagrams of sedimentary rock layers that trap oil. Next, they test porosity and...

Plumb the depths of the Submarine Ring of Fire and explore seismic waves with this lesson. Junior geologists simulate s-waves and p-waves, calculate their speeds, and then apply the data to discover the material that makes up inner...

High schoolers focus on a study of igneous rocks. They see how igneous rocks are formed, and how to distinguish them from other types of rocks. A crystal-growing activity is present, and learners create drawings that show where each...

Students sequence the steps leading to the formation of rain, and design a model to represent these steps. This task assesses students' abilities to classify, generalize, infer, interpret and communicate data, and construct a pictorial...

Students review an interpretation of geologic history and relate it to the formation of oil deposits. They explore and explain factors controlling the porosity and permeability of sediments and sedimentary rocks. Pupils also interpret...

Eighth graders use candy to show the effects of deformation forces on the earth's crust.  In this rock and fossil formation lesson students construct models and simulations to describe and explain natural phenomena.

Students examine the process of tectonic plates and why the Mariana Arc is active with volcanoes. They create a model of the Mariana Arc out of clay.

Learners study the different types of volcanoes and how they erupt.  In this volcano instructional activity students identify where volcanoes are most prevalent and options for predicting eruptions. 

Students are able to describe earth processes (e.g., rusting, weathering, erosion) that have affected selected physical features in students, neighborhoods. They are able to identify various earth structures (e.g., mountains, faults,...

Learners explore the formation of volcanoes. For this earth science lesson, students build their own volcanoes in the lab using different materials. They identify the different types of volcanoes.

Students explore, predict, and create each major rock form (sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous) with colored modeling clay, discover cycle of rock formation, and examine important relationships of heat and pressure in rock development.

Students sample goodies from an unseen ocean floor and try to accurately describe their composition. This simulation helps students explain the limitations of sampling and the problem of obtaining representative samples of sea floor...

Even though volcanoes look alike, they can be very different based on the types of lava that erupts from their surface. Learn about strata volcanoes, shield volcanoes, and the varying viscosity of lava with an engaging hands-on...

Students identify the fault lines and tectonic plates on the map. For this earth science lesson, students simulate landscape formation using robots. They take a quiz at the end of the lesson to demonstrate mastery.

Students discover common features of hydrothermal vent fluids. They use this knowledge to locate possible undiscovered hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.