All Resources and Lesson Plans: Earth System, Structure, and Processes

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.

Antarctica: A Challenging Work Day
What happens when the ground under your feet is ice and it's moving? This video segment adapted from NOVA features some of the dangers faced by scientists conducting research in Antarctica.

Antarctic Ice Movement: Part II
Within Antarctic ice sheets are fast-moving streams of ice. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes about how ice streams are the result of warming at the end of the last ice age.

Avalanche Town
The impact of natural disasters is made vivid in this video segment adapted from NOVA. A small town in Iceland, prepared for recurrent avalanches, is devastated when one takes a new and damaging path.

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.

Carbon Cycle Diagram
This diagram from NASA Earth Science Enterprise illustrates Earth's carbon cycle.

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.

Caves: Extreme Conditions for Life
This video segment adapted from NOVA raises the provocative idea that if life can exist in the most extreme environments on Earth — such as in dark, toxic caves — then perhaps living things can also survive in harsh environments on other planets.

Coastal Geological Materials
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service describes the different kinds of sediments that make up coastlines, with a focus on the variety in color, size, and sorting.

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.

Conserving Water at Home
This video segment adapted from Last Oasis highlights the impact of a variety of water conservation efforts including installing low-flow toilets and planting grass that does not require a lot of water.

Coral Kid
In this video segment, ZOOM guest Cassie takes us on a tour of the coral reef near her home in Key Largo, Florida, and points out some of its unique features.

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.

Deforestation in Bolivia
This visualization adapted from NASA features two satellite images from 1984 and 2000 that show the dramatic deforestation of the Bolivian rainforest.

The Disappearing Aral Sea
This visualization adapted from NASA features satellite images showing how more than 60 percent of the Aral Sea has disappeared during the last 30 years.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Earth’s Albedo and Global Warming
In this interactive activity adapted from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, learn about Earth's albedo (the ratio of reflected vs. incident solar radiation), how pollution alters albedo, and how ice-albedo feedback may accelerate global warming.

Earth System: Ice and Global Warming
This video segment adapted from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center explains ice's role in the Earth system, highlighting the delicate balance that could be upset with a continued rise in temperature due to climate change.

Energy Sources
This video segment produced for Teachers' Domain illustrates a variety of energy sources used to generate electricity, some of which are in use and some of which are under exploration.

Kerri-Ann Richard
In this video from Science City, Kerri-Ann Richard, an environmental engineer, describes how she became interested in the field and why it is important to clean up the environment by removing contaminants from soil and ground water.

Exploring Environmental Change
Students explore the connections that can exist in a natural environment, and examine how changes to the environment, particularly those caused by human activity, can affect those connections.

Flood: Farming and Erosion
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists investigate how farming along the Mississippi River impacts floods and what can be done about it.

Fossilized Dinosaur Bones
This still collage produced for Teachers' Domain features a variety of images of fossilized dinosaur bones, which provide evidence for the existence of these fascinating reptiles.

Fossils: An Ancient Sea in Indiana
In this interactive activity from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Indiana, examine a piece of the ancient Borden Sea in what is now central Indiana. Explore the types of fossils found there and the clues they offer to ancient life on Earth.

Glaciers
Featuring images of glacier formations, this interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service explains what glaciers are, where they are found, how they form, and how they move.

Global View of the Seasons
This interactive activity produced for Teachers' Domain features satellite data of Earth's seasonal cycles. Visualizations and comparative still images reveal how successfully plants are photosynthesizing at different times of the year.

Global Water Distribution
How much water on Earth is fresh water? How much of that fresh water is found in icecaps? Lakes? Rivers? This interactive resource uses bar graphs to illustrate the relative distribution of fresh and salt water on Earth. Adapted from Oxford University Press

The Grand Canyon: Conservation and Development
This video segment adapted from NOVA explores the effects of the Glen Canyon Dam on the beaches, wildlife, and vegetation of the Colorado River.

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.

The Grand Canyon: The Top Two Rock Layers
This brief video segment adapted from NOVA uses illustrations and the well-preserved footprints of a small reptile to portray the history of the Grand Canyon's top two rock layers.

The Great Flood of 1993
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a meteorologist explains how an unusual weather pattern led to one of the most devastating floods of this century.

Great Ocean Conveyor Belt: Part II
A substantial increase in freshwater running into the northern Atlantic Ocean could dramatically affect climate and global ocean currents. This audio segment from National Public Radio presents viewpoints from scientists studying changes in ocean circulation.

How a Dinosaur Became a Fossil
This interactive resource adapted from the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley shows how a dinosaur can be buried under sediment after it dies, become a fossil, and then become exposed and discovered by paleontologists.

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.

How to Build A Road
Geology and weather introduced a variety of unexpected problems when construction crews were building the Alaska Highway. In this interactive activity from the American Experience Web site, see how Army engineers improvised solutions to blaze a trail through the wilderness.

Hurricane Katrina: Wetland Destruction
Tour the wetlands south of New Orleans that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina in this video segment from NOVA scienceNOW.

Infrared Gallery
How would your world look if you saw heat instead of light? In this interactive resource produced for Teachers' Domain, see what familiar objects look like through an infrared camera and watch infrared videos of geysers, mudpots, and hot springs.

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.

Life's Little Essential: Liquid Water
Why is water necessary for life? Why is it the best and possibly only liquid to do the job? This illustrated essay from NOVA Online answers these questions, explaining why planetary scientists are on the lookout for water elsewhere in the solar system.

Making Big Waves
Certain sections of the Northern California coast are host to some of the largest, most spectacular ocean waves in the world. In this video segment from QUEST, learn about how these waves are able to get so large.

Collection Developed by: KQED Public Television

Mammals Get Their Chance
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations of an asteroid hitting Earth are used to illustrate this widely accepted theory of dinosaur extinction and the resulting conditions that favored mammals.

Minerals in Our Environment
What minerals are in your toothpaste? A pencil? A telephone? This interactive resource adapted from the U.S. Geological Survey illustrates the variety of minerals used in everyday items found in kitchens, bathrooms, offices, and yards.

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.

Mount Pinatubo: The Aftermath of a Volcanic Eruption
This video segment adapted from NOVA features footage of the aftermath of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines, including falling ash and mud flows.

Natural Climate Change in Djibouti, Africa
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to illustrate how change in the tilt of Earth's axis produces dramatic climate change over thousands of years.

Natural Wonders
Many of the interesting landmarks around the world are formed over time by natural processes familiar to us in our everyday lives. This still collage produced for Teachers' Domain features images of a variety of beautiful natural wonders.

Observe Sunrise and Sunset
This brief video segment produced for Teachers' Domain features time-lapse video of a sunrise and a sunset.

Oil Spill: Exxon Valdez, 1989
This video segment adapted from NOVA follows the clean-up effort after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska. Also featured is a marsh where an oil spill occurred 20 years earlier; analysis suggests that environmental damage may last for decades.