Categories
Earthquakes Learning Activities Volcanoes

Forces of nature — reviewed in the CS Monitor

The site reviewed by the Christian Science Monitor in How to make your own natural disaster is of interest to me for my EOSC 311 course.

I like the National Geographic Site that they review; the resource is pretty good — but the more useful part is how the Christian Science Monitor reviews the site — good model!

The primary elements of the site are four parallel exhibits looking at Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Tornadoes. Accessible through an animated matrix on the index page, as well as through a screen top navigation bar visible throughout the site, each exhibit supplements the basic facts with Forces’ most conspicuous visitor draw – the ability to create your own natural disasters. But in the interests of education, the individual sections only present these interactive phenomena after you’ve learned the basics behind the real things.

Categories
Planetary Geology

Stromatolites… a less assuming key to life there could not be…

You know, I never knew that the term stromatolite is derived from the Greek for “Stoney Carpet”..

Rocking the Cradle of Life provides a brief explanation of stromatolites, and has an interesting interview with an Oxford Researcher… There are some good mineral deposit tie-ins with this article..

When did life begin? One evidential clue stems from the fossil records in Western Australia, although whether these layered sediments are biological or chemical has spawned a spirited debate. Oxford researcher, Nicola McLoughlin, describes some of the issues in contention.

Categories
General Interest

Census of Marine Life

CoML Secretariat Home Page

Categories
General Interest

The Living Edens

The Living Edens. Resource site assoicated with PBS’ series “The Living Edens”.

For each of the 12 geographic locations, a set of associated Teachers Resources are included — and they are extensive! I looked at a few of them — I need to go back. The project for Glacier Bay is pretty amazing – intended for 5-10 50 minute sessions, grades 4-8. The lesson plan is very detailed, with linked web resources, an assessment strategy (portfolio based), ties to national Standards….. wow!

“… This study guide appoints students as park rangers. As students role-play Glacier Bay Park Rangers, they become acquainted with the career of a park ranger; and they also experience Glacier Bay as a laboratory for observing, studying, and appreciating this paradise of ocean and ice and its inhabitants. “

Well done….The site includes profiles of the following sites:

Glacier Bay – Alaska’s Wild Coast
Kakadu – Australia’s Ancient Wilderness
Kamchatka – Siberia’s Forbidden Wilderness
Madagascar – A World Apart
Manu – Peru’s Hidden Rainforest
Namib – Africa’s Burning Shore
Ngorongoro – Africa’s Cradle of Life
Palau – Paradise of the Pacific
Patagonia – Life at the End of the Earth
South Georgia Island – Paradise of Ice
Thailand – Jewel of the Orient
Yellowstone – America’s Sacred Wilderness

Categories
GIS and other Remote Tools

Beautiful photomosaics of North American

For my geology course (potentially)…

Well captioned composite images of North America..

Categories
Economic Geology

Canadian Minerals

Well – this is a link for my geology course: Minerals and Metals Produced in Canada.

This site is reasonably up to date, and contains succinct summaries of the resources produced through mining in Canada.

The page has a link to the Canadian Minerals Yearbook, another good source for this information.

Categories
General Interest

Earth Science Markup Language

Doing some digging around in geo-sites as well as looking for three-d matrix software (strange obsession, really). I found this interesting effort: Earth Science Markup Language

This project is also listed on SourceForge.

Not sure what I am going to do with this yet.. but I thought I would store it here.

Categories
Paleontology, Paleoclimates..

BBC: Climate film put to computer test

Using the Internet is a very interesting way — reminds me a bit of the SETI project… some researchers in the UK have put together a way to look at unique climate scenarios.

“A worldwide experiment to test the plausibility of the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow starts on 22 June.”

Climate film put to computer test

Categories
Online Courses

Environmental Curriculum

Christian Science Monitor article descrinbing a course that involves a high level of experiential learning…

The natural world is their classroom | csmonitor.com

Categories
General Interest

BBC: Royal Geographical Society opening their archives

Explorers’ archives opened to all

Oh my — I just can’t wait….

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