Index: Teaching Resources

Science

Page Contents

Animal Diversity Web Biodiversity Biology Student Workbench Botany Botany for Kids Brighten Up the Classroom Center for a Sustainable Future Children's Butterfly Site Classifying Galaxies Cosmology 101 Earth Explorers Series Earth's Magnetic Field Eyes on the Sky and Feet on the Ground Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Gravity Probe B Infrared Astronomy Tutorial Magnetic Field Activities for the High School Classroom NeMO Explorer Radio JOVE: Planetary Radio Astronomy for Schools Seeing the Invisible Solar Storms and You Systematics Timeline of the Universe Tree of Life Tsunamis and Earthquakes

Animal Diversity Web

"Animal Diversity Web" is a searchable encyclopedia of thousands of photos, descriptions, sound recordings, & other information about individual animal species. Find out about amphibians, arthropods, birds, fishes, insects, mammals, mollusks, reptiles, & sharks. Explore special features on mammals, skulls, & frog calls. Students are invited to contribute. (NSF) http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html

Biodiversity

"Biodiversity" provides resources for learning about genetic diversity, species diversity, & ecosystem diversity. Explore databases on amphibians, birds, corals, fish, fires, invasive species, plants, oceans, watersheds, & wetlands. Examine genetic information on flies, worms, mice, & trees. (NBII,USGS) http://www.nbii.gov/issues/biodiversity/

Biology Student Workbench

"Biology Student Workbench" introduces the basic concepts of bioinformatics & promotes the use of molecular data in identifying & exploring biological problems. It aims to bring to students' desktops the interactive tools that scientists use to search biology databases & compare molecular sequences, visualize & manipulate molecular structures, & generate phylogenetic hypotheses. (NSF) http://bsw.ncsa.uiuc.edu/

Botany

"Botany" offers resources related to the study of earth's more than 400,000 documented species of plant life. Topics include the history of botany, paleobotany, plant pathology, genetics, anatomy, ecology, algae, mosses, ferns, agronomy, forestry, horticulture, annuals & perennials, vegetables, wildflowers, invasive plant species & weeds, disease & pest management, taxonomies, plant identification tools, plant databases, & science projects. (NBII/USGS) http://www.nbii.gov/disciplines/botany/index.html

Botany for Kids

"Botany for Kids" offers activities for learning how leaves change color, how flowers grow, how plants fight disease & insects, why plants come in so many colors, tips for growing plants, & facts about fungi. Learn about seeds, composting, endangered plant species, fire, lichen, & "plant hunters" -- scientists who collect plant samples from around the world to trace a plant's evolution. (NBII,USGS) http://www.nbii.gov/disciplines/botany/science.html

Brighten Up the Classroom

"Brighten Up the Classroom" provides papers on the aurora & ionosphere, scales for measuring space weather, & a textbook for high school teachers & advanced students -- "Solar Physics & Terrestrial Effects." The textbook examines a range of topics: the evolution & structure of the sun, sunspots & solar flares, the corona & chromosphere, solar-terrestrial interactions, building a spectroscope, measuring the solar constant, & seeing at different wavelengths. (NOAA) http://www.sec.noaa.gov/info/kids/index.html

Center for a Sustainable Future

"Center for a Sustainable Future" includes lessons on land use patterns, ozone & particulates, population growth & transportation, fossil fuels & global warming, air pollution, forests, usable water, & other topics related to designing sustainable communities. (ED) http://csf.concord.org/esf/index.php

Children's Butterfly Site

"Children's Butterfly Site" looks at the life cycle of butterflies & moths, answers frequently asked questions about butterflies & moths, lists references to butterfly & moth books & videos, & provides photos of butterflies in Asia, Western Europe, North America, & Central America. (NBII/USGS) http://mpin.nbii.org/insects/kidsbutterfly/

Classifying Galaxies

"Classifying Galaxies" is a lesson plan on the Hubble system of classifying galaxies.

Students learn what a galaxy is, how the galaxy classification system of Edwin Hubble assigns galaxies to different groups according to their shapes, & how that system can be used to categorize unknown galaxies. (NASA) http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/SegwayEd/lessons/classifying_galaxies/galaxy.htm

Cosmology 101

"Cosmology 101" is a primer on scientific efforts to understand the origin, evolution, & fate of the universe. Among the questions it explores: What types of matter & energy fill the universe? What is the age & shape of the universe? How rapidly is it expanding? The website examines the Big Bang theory, as well as tests & limitations of the theory. (NASA) http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni.html

Earth Explorers Series

"Earth Explorers Series" profiles an atmospheric scientist who flies through hurricanes, an engineer who operates a spectro-radiometer (an instrument on a satellite), an ocean scientist, high school students whose science fair project took them to Croatia, & other "Earth explorers." (NASA) http://science.hq.nasa.gov/education/earth_explorers/index.html

Earth's Magnetic Field

"Earth's Magnetic Field" is the focus of the POETRY website, which explores solar storms & how they affect us, space weather, & the Northern Lights. A 64-page workbook of hands-on activities examines Earth's magnetosphere. Create a classroom magnetometer. Solve the space science problem of the week. (NASA) http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/

Eyes on the Sky and Feet on the Ground

"Eyes on the Sky & Feet on the Ground" provides hundreds of hands-on astronomy explorations for Grades 2-6. Topics include earth's rotation & orbit, earth's tilt, shadows, seasons, time zones, the moon, calendars, maps, the solar system, & tides. Activities help students understand the scientific process. Suggestions are included for discussions before & after explorations. (SI) http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/the_book/index.html

Fisheries and Aquatic Resources

"Fisheries & Aquatic Resources" provides information about managed fish populations throughout the U.S., as well as watershed-based data & state-by-state fishing resources. Learn about freshwater & marine fishes, aquatic invertebrates, water quality & habitats, & dams & fish passage. Fishbase, a global database, provides names, pictures, & key facts about more than 25,000 fish species. (NBII/USGS) http://far.nbii.gov/

Gravity Probe B

"Gravity Probe B" is a "relativity gyroscope" experiment designed to test two unverified predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity (1916): that the presence of a mass in space, such as the Earth, would warp local spacetime, creating a dip or curve in spacetime, & that the rotation of a mass in space would twist or drag the local spacetime frame around it. An educator's guide & space science activities are included. (NASA) http://einstein.stanford.edu/

Infrared Astronomy Tutorial

"Infrared Astronomy Tutorial" examines infrared light, how it was discovered, infrared astronomy, atmospheric windows, & more. An infrared astronomy timeline is included, along with links to news & discoveries, images, & classroom activities. (NASA) http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/ir_tutorial/

Magnetic Field Activities for the High School Classroom

"Magnetic Field Activities for the High School Classroom" helps students understand the vector nature of fields, the ubiquity of fields in the environment, & the 3-dimensionality of fields. Activities include mapping the magnetic field of a room, making a magnetometer, & studying plasma. (NASA) http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/ed

NeMO Explorer

"NeMO Explorer" allows students to explore a seafloor observatory geographically or by topic. Learn about seafloor animals, hydrothermal vents, mid-ocean ridges, axial volcano, lava flow, & technology & tools. Operate (remotely) a vehicle that takes you to the seafloor near an active submarine volcano.

Explore black smoker vents, new lava flows, & unusual life forms. (NOAA) http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/nemo/explorer.html

Radio JOVE: Planetary Radio Astronomy for Schools

"Radio JOVE: Planetary Radio Astronomy for Schools" helps students & amateur scientists observe & analyze natural radio emissions of Jupiter & the Sun. Through the study of their magnetic fields & their plasma (charged particle) environments, we are better able to understand the Earth. (NASA) http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Seeing the Invisible

"Seeing the Invisible" offers a guide & workbook to help students discover that the sun emits light in wavelengths outside the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Activities allow students to view unique features of the Sun that are revealed only by certain spectral wavelengths of light. (NASA) http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/class6-8.htm

Solar Storms and You

"Solar Storms & You" is a series of 6 workbooks on solar activity & sunspots, solar wind, magnetic storms, aurora, & satellite design (Grades 7- 9). (NASA) http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry//higley.html

Systematics

"Systematics" focuses on the classification of organisms & their evolutionary relationships. It includes information about Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the father of modern plant & animal classification, & links to resources for learning about taxonomies, biological nomenclature, careers in systematic biology, & more. Resources are organized by the five kingdoms: viruses, bacteria, protists, fungi, plants, & animals. (NBII/USGS) http://www.nbii.gov/disciplines/systematics.html

Timeline of the Universe

"Timeline of the Universe" is an online tutorial that traces the 15-billion-year history of the universe. It starts with the Big Bang & discusses the formation of elements in stars, planetary systems, Earth-like planets, & Jupiter-like planets. The "chemistry of life" is also examined. (NASA) http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov/library/poster/poster.html

Tree of Life

"Tree of Life" offers photos, descriptions, & other information documenting the diversity of the world's organisms. Learn about animals, arthropoda, eukaryotes, flowering plants, fungi, & terrestrial vertebrates. Explore genetic relationships among organisms. (NSF) http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html

Tsunamis and Earthquakes

"Tsunamis & Earthquakes" uses animation & virtual reality to show how tsumanis are generated by earthquakes. Learn about tsunami research & mitigation efforts -- how sediments are transported by a tsunami, how researchers decipher the geologic record of prehistoric tsunamis, & the seismograph network of the west coast tsunami warning system. (USGS) http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/