Twelve Stones portrays the heart of Heifer's work - Passing on the Gift ÂŽ - and shows the transformation of a community of women in Nepal from helplessness to hope through Heifer International. This is a preview clip of a documentary produced by Sandy Smolen.
This video adapted from the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive, explores what happened during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 through original footage, first-person accounts, and animations illustrating plate tectonics. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
Earthquakes are natural phenomena that can cause immense human suffering because of intense ground shaking and are consequently of great societal importance. Earthquakes are also important because the seismic waves that generate the ground shaking provide scientists with important information about Plate Tectonics and geology, in particular information about the structure and composition of our planet and how the insides of the planet are deforming. In this course, earthquakes in Africa and the seismic waves they generate are used to help you to learn about the geology of Africa and how the earth beneath the African continent is being deformed by Plate Tectonics.
This is a laboratory course supplemented by lectures that focus on selected analytical facilities that are commonly used to determine the mineralogy, elemental abundance and isotopic ratios of Sr and Pb in rocks, soils, sediments and water.
Tsunami waves can be distinguished from ordinary ocean waves by many factors, including the tremendous amount of energy they carry, the great distance between their wave crests, and their capacity to travel at jetliner speeds across an entire ocean. In this interactive from NOVA Online, explore how the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami -- the deadliest in recorded history -- was triggered, how its waves traveled thousands of kilometers largely unchanged, and what happened once the waves reached coastlines both near and far from their source. Grades 6-12 ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
In this interactive activity from NOVA Online, explore the main features of the Nyiragongo volcano, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and learn what risks it poses to the 500,000 people who live in its shadow. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
This short film uses graphics to provide an introduction to the physical causes of earthquakes, and to explore how the way we build and manage our cities determines their vulnerability to a seismic strike.
It was created with the UK GCSE and A' Level curricula in mind.
In this jigsaw-method activity on subduction zone volcanism, students apply lessons learned from four historic eruptions to the volcanic hazards associated with Mt. Rainier in the Pacific Northwest.
In this Science NetLinks lesson, students determine what artifacts are, how they are discovered, and what information can be learned from them. They also learn how artifacts are initially buried and then excavated. This lesson is one of a two-part series on archaeology.
"This course covers the following questions. What are the predominant heat producing elements of the Earth? Where and how much are they? Are they present in the core of the Earth? Detection of antineutrinos generated in the Earth provides: 1) information on the sources of the terrestrial heat, 2) direct test of the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE) model and 3) testing of non-conventional models of Earth's core. Use of antineutrinos to probe the deep interior of our planet is becoming practical due to recent fundamental advances in the antineutrino detectors."
In this case study students will examine a development proposal for a new hotel to be built on Long Key in the community of Saint Pete Beach, Florida. Students will be assigned different roles in the community and state, including a scientist from the FWRI, a construction worker hired for the project, the hotelier, a local beachgoer, a tourist, a member of Citizens for Responsible growth, a nearby restaurant owner, an engineer form the Army Corps of Engineers, the City of St. Pete mayor, a local environmentalist, and the hearing board (who has the final say on the plan). Students will be provided several resources and background information on the proposed development. (See resources and materials sections) Students will also be provided time to conduct further research. A classroom public hearing will be held to create a recommendation and decide whether the development plan should be approved, declined, or amended. Each role will have two to three students working together to make their argument.
This video segment describes how the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as Lucy could have been fossilized. Footage courtesy of NOVA: "In Search of Human Origins." ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
BRIGHT Girls was a project to build broader participation in the sciences, led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and funded by the National Science Foundation. We sought to increase students' motivation and capacity to pursue careers in STEM by engaging them in studies of nearby natural environments. The developed lesson plans may be used in formal or informal educational settings, e.g., in a summer academy or across multiple class periods. These investigations help students explore the relationships among life history and ecosystems, connecting biology to geology and remote sensing.
Students design and construct devices to trap insects that are present in the area around the school. The objective is to ask the right design questions and conduct the right tests to determine if the traps work .
This interactive resource from NOVA Online shows how an atoll is formed from a volcanic island and describes the role coral reefs play in this process. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
This learning video uses a simple analog setup to explore why earthquakes are so unpredictable. The setup is simple enough that students should be able to assemble and operate it on their own with a teacher's supervision. The teaching approach used in this module is known as the 5E approach, which stands for Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation. Over the course of this lesson, the basic mechanisms that give rise to the behavior of the simple analog system are explained, and further elaboration helps the students to apply their understanding of the analog system to complex fault systems that cause earthquakes
This module provides an overview of the biogeochemical carbon cycle. Major sources and sinks of carbon are discussed as well as the impact of human activities on global carbon levels.
Students consider the Earth's major types of landforms such as mountains, rivers, plains, hills, canyons, oceans and plateaus. Student teams build three-dimensional models of landscapes, depicting several of these landforms. Once the models are built, they act as civil and transportation engineers to design and build roads through the landscapes they have created. The worksheet is provided in English and Spanish.
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service presents the key concepts of cave and karst systems, including how and where they form, different types, and various cave environments. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
Using planetary maps, students will be able to read cartographic information and compare the environmental conditions of Io to those Earth. They will understand the conditions needed for life to exist, and be able to explain why it cannot exist on Io.