Normally we find things using landmark navigation. When you move to a new place, it may take you awhile to explore the new streets and buildings, but eventually you recognize enough landmarks and remember where they are in relation to each other. However, another accurate method for locating places and things is using grids and coordinates. In this activity, students will come up with their own system of a grid and coordinates for their classroom and understand why it is important to have one common method of map-making.

Students learn how engineers navigate satellites in orbit around the Earth and on their way to other planets in the solar system. In accompanying activities, they explore how ground-based tracking and onboard measurements are performed. Also provided is an overview of orbits and spacecraft trajectories from Earth to other planets, and how spacecraft are tracked from the ground using the Deep Space Network (DSN). DSN measurements are the primary means for navigating unmanned vehicles in space. Onboard spacecraft instruments might include optical sensors and an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

Using this resource, students will select one of the times from the list and travel through time and check out what the Earth looked liked in the far distant past or what it might look like far into the future. At each stop there is more information about each geological time period.

Students will share their knowledge of the Earth and Sun as it pertains to day and night and generate questions about the causes of day and night using a KWL chart. They will then use a flashlight and model of the Earth to investigate how the rotation of the Earth affects night and day. Students will discuss their findings, adding what they learned to their charts, and diagram their understanding in their journals.

Students gain an understanding of the layers of the Earth by designing and building clay models.

This lesson explores how the Earth?s landscape features change through forces of nature such as wind, water, glaciation, and volcanism.

Students will investigate relative size and distance by creating a basic model of our solar system.

In this activity, students will observe and describe what the sky looks like at different times, identify objects in the sky and recognize changes over time, and look for objects that are common to the daytime and nighttime sky.

Students will first use CoSpace to create a virtual model of Newton's.  Students will learn how to use CoSpace to create 3D virtual models.  Next students will review concepts of rotation, revolution, seasons, tides, barycenter, precession, nutation by further exploring CoSpaces.  Students will learn to write code to enable the earth to rotate and then revolve around the sun.

Students will analyze data of tornadoes throughout the United States. They will create a bar graph of the number of tornadoes for the top ten states in the country and then calculate the median and the mode of the data.

Students will learn about the position of the sun and moon in the sky to develop an understanding of relative distances, the appearance of movement across the sky, and relate it to day and night, Earth's orbit, the spin of the Earth, and the visible shape of the moon.

This classroom activity helps students understand how the angle of the Sun affects temperatures around the globe. After experimenting with a heat lamp and thermometers at differing angles, students apply what they learned to explain temperature variations on Earth. The printable six-page handout includes a series of inquiry-based questions to get students thinking about what they already know about temperature patterns, detailed experiment directions and a worksheet that helps students use the experiment results to gain a deeper understanding of seasonal temperature changes and why Antarctica is always so cold.

Playing with Dirt, Water, and Nature’s Treasures: Create a fantastical creature using soil and discovered natural treasures from your own back yard. Mix in ...

Playing with Dirt, Water, and Nature’s Treasures: Create a fantastical creature using soil and discovered natural treasures from your own back yard. Mix in a little water, and voila! Let the creating begin!

Students will learn the difference between global, prevailing and local winds. In this activity, students will make a wind vane out of paper, a straw and a soda bottle and use it to measure wind direction over time. Finally, they will analyze their data to draw conclusions about the prevailing winds in their area.

Students learn about wind energy by making a pinwheel to model a wind turbine. Just like engineers, they decide where and how their turbine works best by testing it in different areas of the playground.

This is an encyclopedia entry for "biosphere." The biosphere is made up of the parts of Earth where life exists. The biosphere extends from the deepest root systems of trees, to the dark environment of ocean trenches, to lush rain forests and high mountaintops. Text for this entry is appropriate for the middle and high school grade levels.

This is an encyclopedia entry for the term "groundwater." Groundwater is all the water found underneath the Earth?s surface. Text for this entry is appropriate for the middle and high school grade levels.

This encyclopedia entry is for the term "ozone layer." The ozone layer is one layer of the stratosphere, the second layer of the Earth?s atmosphere. The stratosphere is the mass of protective gases clinging to our planet. This entry discusses what the ozone layer does for us and how we are impacting the layer. Text for this entry is appropriate for the middle and high school grade levels.