Each month we highlight a resource that a community member has suggested for inclusion into the library. Your contributions are what make DLESE a community-owned project. Please do contribute by suggesting your favorite sites.
In the Global Warming Project students in grades 7-10 learn about the scientific factors that contribute to the controversial global warming debate. The project places students as advisors to the heads of state of several different nations, prompting students to learn about the issue as they respond to the various questions and concerns of these leaders. As expert scientists on the issue, the class will need to understand and be able to explain to the heads of state what forces affect climate and what global warming actually means. Once they do this, they will need to help the different nations of the world understand how global warming will affect them and what they can do about it. Each team of students is responsible for advising one country and will ultimately need to present a proposal that offers a set of solutions which address the concerns of their country. The unit utilizes the visualization software, Worldwatcher to explore concepts of temperature, population density and carbon emissions as they relate to the warming of the Earth. This project is a collaborative effort of the Worldwatcher Project and the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools.
Visit to an Ocean Planet is an innovative CD-ROM for grades 6-12 that makes science, ocean, climate and life education fun and interactive. The CD-ROM has three sections. The Expedition section engages students in exploring the 1997 El Nino, a look at oceanographers and their work, and ocean science research cruise planning. In the Mission section, students discover many details about the TOPEX/Poseidon mission and learn about previous and future missions. The Guide section contains lessons and classroom activities in Climate, Oceanography, and Life in Our Oceans. This section also contains movies, images, and background materials. Classroom activities can be downloaded directly from the website, as .pdf files. If you are an educator or home schooler, you can obtain a copy of the "Visit to an Ocean Planet" CD-ROM free of charge from the JPL Physical Oceanography DAAC: http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/edu.
The Earth System TESY site is intended to provide a learning environment for college level students interested in learning about the Earth and how the Earth system works. It is designed to support three courses offered by the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, but it is not meant to discourage the creativity of individual faculty who wish to use its resources in a variety of ways. The three courses are Climate, The Solid Earth System, and The Life System and Environmental & Evolutionary Biology. This first release emphasizes the use of large data sets in helping students understand the Earth system and how one can learn about it through data exploration. Future plans include adding interactive applications which, when combined with the data sets, will help students develop a conceptual grasp of how various aspects of the Earth system operate. These applications or modules will serve courses at a variety of levels and help students gain an understanding of how matter and energy move through the system producing the present physical environment.
Topics covered in the The Climate System module include origin and development of the atmosphere and oceans, formation of winds, storms and ocean currents, reasons for changes through geologic time, recent influence of human activity, i.e. the ozone hole, global warming, acid rain, water pollution, and laboratory exploration of topics through demonstrations, experimentation, computer data analysis and modeling. The Solid Earth System component provides an integrated view of the lithospheric component of the Earth system. The Life System component provides an integrated view of the history of life, biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity, evolution, ecology, and physiology at the microbe to global scale. It also stresses the biotic systems, in contrast to the physical systems, as maintaining the non-equilibrium state of the Earth's surface.
The mission of the One Sky, Many Voices project is to create innovative, inquiry-based K-12 weather curricula that utilize current technologies such as CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web for the interactive study of current weather and air quality. Students, teachers, and parents can participate from classrooms, homes, after-school programs or other educational settings. OSMV provides four-week and eight-week programs centered around environmental science themes. All programs run during set time periods so that individuals worldwide can coordinate their learning with many other participants.
Kids as Global Scientists, an eight-week program offering a unique blend of structured weather curriculum, hands-on science investigations, real-time information from the Internet, telecommunication through an electronic message board, and an Internet CD-ROM. Distinctive features of the program include: Classroom learning that includes peer coaching and information exchange world-wide, learning which can capitalize on today's science developments, interdisciplinary connections (i.e. science, language arts, geography, and mathematics), and a coordinated, yet flexible curricular shell which allows for local customization by teachers and students at each site.
This week's highlight
is a professional development site from SRI International's
Center for Technology in Learning.
Where on the Web can educators go to find, share, and talk about digital resources? TAPPED IN is the online home to a rapidly growing community of over 9,000 K-12 teachers, teacher education faculty, professional development staff, researchers, and other education professionals. Through TAPPED IN, educators can attend activities hosted by education organizations, conduct their own online activities and courses, bring their students online, experiment with new ways to teach, or expand their circle of colleagues by participating in community-wide events (see our monthly events calendar). TAPPED IN also supports the online activities of more than 20 professional development programs, pre-service and masteršs degree programs, state and local education agencies, and scores of small groups. Membership is free to all education professionals, and guests are welcome. Log in and ask the Help Desk staff for a tour! For more information, send email to firstname.lastname@example.org.
Part of the Geology On-Line series, Virtual Earthquake is an interactive Web-based program designed to introduce students to the concepts of how an earthquake epicenter is located and how the Richter magnitude of an earthquake is determined. The Virtual Earthquake computer program is running on a Web Server at California State University at Los Angeles. You can interact with Virtual Earthquake using your Web browser.
Geology Labs On-Line is a comprehensive project to develop Web-based lab activities that enhance the learning and teaching of Geology and other Earth Science courses at the College and High School AP level. These "Virtual" labs are interactive where students learn by "doing" and not just clicking and viewing. Other modules including Virtual Dating, Virtual River and Virtual Volcano are in various phases of development.
Studying the Earth's Environment from Space
This site is organized in a modular style based on Earth science topics studied by scientists using environmental data collected by satellites. It is designed for high school and college level instructors and students.
Four modules have been developed.
The Stratospheric Ozone and Global Land Vegetation modules are ready for use and have been reviewed by the NASA Earth Science Enterprise Education Product Review Committee. The Oceanography and Polar Sea Ice Processes modules are currently under review.
Click here to see a metadata record in progress for this resource.