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What Makes Up a Healthy Watershed
Students, after observing the elements of a local watershed, explore the need to protect watersheds as water resources for the future. They examine the factors involved with a watershed: geology, ecology, and the effect of man's...
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Geologic cross section of Manhattan, NYC
Students draw an accurate geologic cross section by using a given data table. They relate the features of the cross section to geologic processes. Students then relate the characteristics of the bedrock to the architecture.
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Sea Floor Spreading I
Students use Excel to explore the geodynamics Model equation for ocean depth around a sea-floor spreading center. They use an equation relating ocean floor depth to sea floor spreading rate and distance from spreading center for a...
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Marine Environmental Geology
Students take this course as an introduction to the aspects of marine geology and oceanography that affect the environment and marine resources. Topics include estuarine oceanography and sediments, eutrophication of coastal waters,...
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Assembling a Geologic History
Students combine information from several field labs to construct an overall geologic history of the local region. They are able to use published reports of the geologic history as they compile their own version.
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A Glacier Ran Through It
Students learn basic geological concepts while researching how ice age floods sculpted the plateau of the Columbia Basin. They synthesize their learning by creating annotated illustrations of the geological principles they studied.
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Carve That Mountain
Students investigate major landforms (e.g., mountains, rivers, plains, hills, oceans and plateaus). They build a three-dimensional model of a landscape depicting several of these landforms. Once they have built their model, they act as...
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Sculptured Landscapes
Students research glaciers, how they are formed and what kind of landforms they carve out of the rock they pass over. They organize their findings into a mock newscast in a presentation for the class.
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Fossils
Students complete a unit on fossils. They read and discuss informational handouts, define key vocabulary terms, answer discussion questions, create a geologic timeline and a timeline of their own life, analyze bones, and create a fossil...
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Cookie Mapping
Students study the components of a bedrock geology map through a hands-on activity involving a cookie and graph paper.
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Interpreting Paleoenvironments With Microfossils
Students gain a better understanding of how scientists can use foraminifera to interpret past environments. Specifically, students have the opportunity to explain one of the basic tenets of geology - the present is the key to the past.
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Rock Hunters
Students observe rocks of various types and sizes and record these observations through drawings. They gather rocks, measure, classify, observe, describe and record their collection.
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Sequencing Time
Students place events in sequence and assign relative times to each event. They gain an understanding of relative and numerical time and become familiar with the methods used by scientists to develop the Geologic Time Scale.
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VARVES: Dating Sedimentary Strata: Geology, Paleontological Patterns
Students count the number of varves (annual layers of sediment) in shale billets, taken from the Green River Formation in Wyoming. The count is then extended to reflect the entire 260 meters of sediments where the billets originated.
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Time Machine: Evolution, Geology
Students are taken on a simulated "voyage" backward in time, to the beginning of our planet. They "witness" that beginning, the origin of life, and a number of key events from then to the present.
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The Great Fossil Find - Reconstructing the Pieces
High schoolers go on an imaginary fossil hunt. They follow a script read by the teacher, students "find" (remove from envelope) paper "fossils" of some unknown creature. They attempt to reconstruct fossil pieces into an animal.
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Spacing Out
Students explore environmental and geological conditions on other planets in our solar system, comparing their findings to information about Earth. They propose technologies that might assist in supporting human life on those planets.
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Science Jeopardy - Virginia Geology
Unique in content, this Jeopardy-style game quizzes participants on the geology of the state of Virginia. Categories include provinces, east or west, under the surface, once alive, and fun facts. Other than teachers of upper elementary...
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Biology and the Future
Can science help minimize the damaging effects of an oil spill? Get your scholars brainstorming how different types of scientists are involved in developing ways to clean up oil spills. A table is partly filled in, and students complete...
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Everybody Needs a Rock
Here is a lesson that rocks! Young scientists choose a rock and list words that describe it. They estimate the mass of their rocks and rank them within a group. They measure their rocks for volume and write a story that somehow includes...
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Sedimentary Rocks Worksheet
In this geology lab worksheet, students answer 31 short answer questions about sedimentary rocks. Teacher needs to provide text or internet site for students to find answers.
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Igneous Rocks Worksheet
In this geology exploration worksheet, students complete 27 short answer questions about the properties and locations of igneous rocks. Teacher must provide text or internet link.
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Classify Rocks
Students classify different types of rocks. In this earth science lesson, students test different rock samples and construct a chart to record observations. They create a concept map that answers essential questions.
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Lunar Geology
Ninth graders investigate mineral contents in lunar rocks. In this lunar rock lesson students identify simulated lunar rocks based on mineral content.