NC State University
The Engineering Place: Earthquakes and Volcanoes
In this lesson, students simulate volcanic explosions using liquids of varying viscosity, and learn about volcano and earthquake zones around the world.
American Geosciences Institute
American Geosciences Institute: Earth Science Week: Global Gis Lesson: Exploring North American Earthquakes
In this series of lessons, learners use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) together with the tools and data from the North America Global GIS CD to investigate earthquakes, volcanoes, and population from a local to global scale....
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Musical Plates: A Study of Earthquakes and Plate Tectonics
Four part lab activity involves students using real-time data to solve a problem, study the correlation between earthquakes and tectonic plates, and determine whether or not there is a relationship between volcanoes and plate boundaries.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Interpreting Live Data
Students will be using live data about volcanoes and earthquakes to look for patterns and understand why natural disasters may or may not be able to be predicted. Resources include helpful websites, a video of the lesson in action,...
PBS
Pbs: Earth Science Exploration
An earth science collection where students can explore earthquakes, volcanoes, and more natural phenomena. The collection uses videos and interactive activities to investigate our dynamic planet and earth systems.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Impact of Natural Disasters on the Earth
Through demonstrations and other research, students explore the impact of various natural disasters on the earth. The disasters include floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and earthquakes.
Other
Digital Library for Earth System Education: Teaching Box: Mountain Building
A suite of lessons focusing on all aspects of how mountains are formed. Inquiry-based exploration of mountain building includes the rock cycle, mountain formation, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, erosion, rocks, minerals, and...
Crayola
Crayola: Birth of Islands (Lesson Plan)
This site is a lesson plan that incorporates language arts, social studies, science, and art. After studying islands, and how they're formed, students create their own models using clay. Also provides resources and adaptations. (To...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Writing to Support the Theory of Plate Tectonics
This lesson helps young scholars use images that depict earthquakes, seafloor ages, topography, and volcanoes, and then make a scientific argument supporting the Theory of Plate Tectonics.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Naturally Disastrous
Students are introduced to natural disasters, and learn the difference between natural hazards and natural disasters. They discover the many types of natural hazards - avalanche, earthquake, flood, forest fire, hurricane, landslide,...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Deadly Shadow of Vesuvius
Observe the relationship among volcanoes, earthquakes and lithospheric plates by collecting data and creating maps. This activity was created to be used with the NOVA program, "Deadly Shadow of Vesuvius" but the video is not necessary...
National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Nagt: Discovering Plate Boundaries
Students work collaboratively using data maps to discover plate tectonic boundary processes. Data sets used are earthquakes, volcanoes, seafloor age, and topography.
American Geosciences Institute
American Geosciences Institute: Earth Science Week: Mapping Quake Risk
Learners use GIS to observe worldwide patterns of earthquakes and volcanoes and analyze the relationships of those patterns to tectonic plate boundaries. Then they identify cities at risk.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Plate Kinematics
For this activity, young scholars will observe and understand the basic kinematics of plate movement, how oceans are formed during continental rifting, and the relationship between plate geometry and tectonic data such as earthquakes,...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Writing About Plate Tectonics
This lesson is a writing assignment focussed on the use of data to support the theory of plate tectonics. It includes a scoresheet that was created for a calibrated peer review assignment. The assignment directs students to determine the...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: A Data Rich Exercise for Discovering Plate Boundary Processes
This article in the Journal of Geoscience Education describes a classroom exercise based on four world maps containing earthquake, volcano, topographical and seafloor age data. Students participate in this exercise by using a "jigsaw"...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Quick or Slow? I've Got to Know!
Earth changes can happen quickly or slowly. The students will work in teams to stake a claim about these changes and then use texts to find evidence to prove their claims. Included in this lesson are video clips of the class, a list of...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Discovering Plate Boundaries
A data rich exercise built around four global data maps to help students discover the processes that occur at plate tectonic boundaries. The lesson plan is based on the jigsaw concept, mixing the students to work in different groups...
Utah Education Network
Uen: Vocabulary Words in Context
For this lesson, 5th graders will use context clues as they learn new science vocabulary words through listening, reading and discussing the new content. The terms are associated with the reshaping of the earth's surface.