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.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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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.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Deep Time
This interactive timeline from Evolution offers a visual representation of the major geological changes, transformations, and extinction episodes in the 4.6-billion-year history of Earth.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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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.
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3-8 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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K-8 |
Flash Image
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Fossils
Fossils are indicators of past life. This collection of still images produced for Teachers' Domain features examples of fossils from plants, animals, and insects.
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3-12 |
Flash Image
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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.
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3-12 |
Flash Interactive
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Fun with Fossils
Students create their own fossils, and then learn how real fossils form, and investigate what they can tell us about the past.
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3-5 |
Lesson Plan
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The Grand Canyon: Ancient Mountains
This video segment adapted from NOVA features the twisted and melted forms of the Grand Canyon's oldest rocks, the 1.7-billion-year-old Vishnu Schist.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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The Grand Canyon: Evidence of Earth's Past
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a fossil found among the Grand Canyon's rock layers reveals the existence of a shallow sea that once covered most of western North America.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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The Grand Canyon: Its Youngest Rocks
This video segment adapted from NOVA features the youngest rock formations in the Grand Canyon, lava dams, and how they are subject to the eroding power of water.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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3-8 |
Flash Interactive
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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.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Life Before Oxygen
This video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA features evidence of life on Earth before the atmosphere contained a rich supply of oxygen.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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K-5 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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
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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
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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.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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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.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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The Scientific Process
Students explore how they can use the processes of science to learn about events that occurred in the past. They make observations, develop a hypothesis, and use evidence to test their hypothesis to see how well it holds up in light of their evidence.
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6-8 |
Lesson Plan
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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
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Types of Fossils
This interactive resource adapted from the University of California Museum of Paleontology features images of body fossils, trace fossils, and a combination of the two.
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3-12 |
Flash Interactive
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The Wall of Time
This illustrated timeline from the Lunar and Planetary Institute provides a journey through four-and-a-half billion years of time from the birth of our solar system to its current existence today.
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6-12 |
JPEG Image
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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.
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3-12 |
Shockwave Interactive
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When Did the First Americans Arrive?
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, recent archeological evidence leads scientists to revise existing theories about human migrations into the Americas around the time of the last ice age.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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