Subtopic: Internal Earth Processes

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Resource	Grade Level	Media Type
Anatomy of a Tsunami Using visual models and other graphics, this interactive activity from NOVA Online reveals details of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that collided with coasts around the Indian Ocean.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Anatomy of a Volcano 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.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Build an Island 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.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Cave Formation: Biogeochemical Cycles This video segment adapted from NOVA chronicles the discoveries that led to a radical new theory in which living organisms, not just geological processes, play an active role in cave formation.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Cave Formation: Kane Cave This video segment adapted from NOVA describes a simple experiment that confirmed the idea that microbes can accelerate the biogeochemical process of cave formation.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Collecting Data Below the Earth's Surface This video segment adapted from Discovering Women demonstrates how scientists use sound waves to collect data about the structure of Earth's crust.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Deep-Sea Vents and Life's Origins Deep-sea vents are home to life forms that do not rely on the Sun's energy. They depend instead on energy from volcanoes on the ocean floor. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes that life on Earth may have begun in this extreme environment.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Drilling to Antarctica’s Rock Core In this video adapted from ANDRILL, find out how geoscientists get through more than a dozen football fields of ice and water in order to study the rock and sediment beneath Antarctica.	3-8	QuickTime Video
Earth as a System This visualization adapted from NASA maps progressive global changes onto a rotating globe. Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere are shown to be dynamic and interconnected.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Earthquake Prediction This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the tragic story of two Japanese seismologists who disagreed about the threat of earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Today, seismologists in California offer residents a probability of risk that an earthquake might occur.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Earthquakes Students explore the causes of earthquakes, including the role of tectonic plates, and consider the efforts scientists are making to better understand and predict these sometimes deadly events.	6-12	Lesson Plan
Earthquakes: Los Angeles In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to show how the hills around Los Angeles were formed by earthquakes at small thrust faults that extend outward from the larger San Andreas fault.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Earthquakes: San Francisco The history of earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area is plotted on a digital map and analyzed in this video segment adapted from NOVA.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Earthquakes: The Prehistoric Record In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a geologist digs a trench along the San Andreas Fault to reveal three thousand years of earthquake history. Information from the layers of sediment may help geologists to predict earthquakes.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Earthquakes: The Seismograph This video segment adapted from NOVA uses historical illustrations, photographs, and animations to explain how seismographs work, the difference between P and S waves, and the Richter scale.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot! In this Nature lesson, students will learn about different types of volcanoes, how and why they erupt and the physical impact of volcanic eruptions.	9-11	Lesson Plan
Forecasting Volcanic Eruptions This media-rich essay from NOVA Online describes the challenges of forecasting volcanic eruptions and includes information about specific cases.	9-12	HTML Interactive
Geology of Death Valley This video segment from NatureScene examines the landforms of Death Valley and how they came to be.	3-8	QuickTime Video
Geology of North Dakota Badlands See how the geology of the North Dakota badlands has changed over time in this video segment from NatureScene, featuring the landscape at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.	3-8	QuickTime Video
The Grand Canyon: How It Formed This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to present the theory of how the Grand Canyon was formed and features rare footage of a phenomenon known as debris flow.	3-12	QuickTime Video
How Caves Form This interactive activity from NOVA Online shows four different ways in which caves are formed: by rainwater, waves, lava, and bacteria.	3-12	Flash Interactive
How Did Life Emerge Here? This video segment adapted from NOVA describes the emergence of life on the islands of Hawaiʻi from a barren volcanic platform under the ocean waves to the rich explosion of life that covers the many climate zones of the islands today.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Lava Sampling on Kilauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientist Mike Garcia draws lava samples at the foot of the active Kilauea volcano to see if it is related to its neighboring volcano, Mauna Loa.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Making a Seismometer In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members make a seismometer and experiment with different ways to make it register movement.	3-8	QuickTime Video
Mountain Maker, Earth Shaker This interactive activity adapted from A Science Odyssey Web site helps you visualize different types of plate tectonic activity and shows the impact this activity has on Earth's surface.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Mount Pinatubo: Predicting a Volcanic Eruption This video segment adapted from NOVA relates the dramatic story of vulcanologists trying to predict the timing of the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Mount St. Helens: Before and After This multimedia resource produced for Teachers' Domain chronicles the 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. Featured are still images of the devastation, video of the eruption plume, and before-and-after satellite images of the affected region.	3-12	Flash Interactive
Once and Future Tsunamis In this interactive world map from NOVA Online explore nine key tsunamis dating from 3.5 billion years ago and discover what experts have learned from studying them.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Plate Tectonics: An Introduction This video segment adapted from Discovering Women uses animations to introduce the theory of plate tectonics and to explain why earthquakes occur and how continents form.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: Further Evidence This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey uses animation and archival footage to provide an overview of the theory of plate tectonics.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: Lake Mead, Nevada Using animations to illustrate the theory of plate tectonics, this video segment adapted from Discovering Women takes you to Lake Mead, Nevada, to see visual evidence of how plate movement has been stretching the North American continent.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: The Hawaiian Archipelago This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to show the relationship between the movement of a tectonic plate and whether volcanoes on the Hawaiian Islands are active or dormant.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: The Scientist Behind the Theory This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey profiles Alfred Wegener, the scientist who first proposed the theory of continental drift. Initially criticized, his theory was accepted after further evidence revealed the existence of tectonic plates and showed that these plates move.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Predicting Earthquakes This video segment, adapted from QUEST, describes the extraordinary research that scientists are doing to help demystify and possibly better predict earthquakes.	9-12	QuickTime Video
See a Reversal View a computer model simulation from NOVA Online that illustrates what happens during a magnetic field reversal, an infrequent occurrence that may be currently underway.	6-12	QuickTime Interactive
Seismic Signals In this interactive activity from NOVA Online, you can see the four primary types of earthquakes produced by volcanoes and the signals each produces on a seismometer.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Stressed Out! In this lesson, students will identify methods for detecting and locating earthquakes, utilizing excerpts from the Nature episode titled “Can Animals Predict Disaster?”	9-11	Lesson Plan
Tectonic Plates and Plate Boundaries This interactive activity adapted from NASA features world maps that identify different sections of the Earth's crust called tectonic plates. The locations of different types of plate boundaries are also identified, including convergent, divergent, and transform boundaries.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Tectonic Plates, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes This interactive activity produced for Teachers' Domain shows the relationship between tectonic boundaries and the locations of earthquake events and volcanoes around the world.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Underwater Hotspots This video segment, adapted from Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures, outlines the geologic process surrounding the formation of islands in the South Pacific.	9-12	QuickTime Video
Virtual Lava Tube This interactive resource adapted from The Virtual Lava Tube by Dave Bunnell, presents images of different features found in lava tube caves and includes detailed information on how these features are formed and where they occur.	3-12	Flash Interactive
A Visit to Yellowstone In this adapted video segment, ZOOM guest Laura shows us some of the natural features of Yellowstone National Park, including geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, and mud pots, as well as some of the wildlife.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Volcanic Eruptions and Hazards This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service illustrates the difference between explosive and effusive volcanic eruptions as well as the hazards that can result, including lahars, tsunamis, and lava flows.	6-12	HTML Interactive
Volcanic Features This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service illustrates the variety of landforms and features created by volcanoes. Featured are calderas, craters, fumaroles and other geothermal features, igneous rocks, lava flows, lava tubes, and maars.	6-12	HTML Interactive
Volcanism Volcanoes are one of the most dynamic, powerful, and visible forces on Earth. This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service uses images to describe different types and parts of volcanoes, volcanic rocks, magma, and where volcanoes form.	6-12	HTML Interactive
Volcanoes Students investigate the processes that build volcanoes, the factors that influence different eruption types, and the threats volcanoes pose to their surrounding communities. They use what they have learned to identify physical features and eruption types of several actual volcanic episodes.	6-12	Lesson Plan
Wave of the Future This media-rich essay from NOVA Online describes the challenges involved in installing a warning system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.	6-12	HTML Document
What Killed the Dinosaurs? This Evolution Web feature uses animations to explore how evidence can support a variety of hypotheses surrounding the mystery behind the extinction of the dinosaurs.	3-12	Shockwave Interactive

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Subtopic: Internal Earth Processes