Earth Activities
The lessons below are teacher-favorite lessons focused on Earth. For more search options or to search by other science target, missions and other criteria, visit our Fast Lesson Finder. You can also search by curriculum standards on our popular Curriculum Standards Quilts.
Earth Lessons:
Cake Batter Lava (Viscosity)
Topic: Planetary Surface Processes
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth
Short Description: Participants use cake batter to simulate surface lava flows with channels, levees, and ridges.
Dance of the Moon and Oceans
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students discover how the Moon's gravitational pull causes the level of the ocean to rise and fall twice a day along most coastlines through this kinesthetic activity, and consider what the Earth's tides might have been like if there was no Moon.
Dancing Lights
Topic: Magnetism
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8
Body: Earth
Short Description: Although children this age aren't prepared to learn about Earth's magnetosphere, they may be interested in the Northern Lights, which are caused by our magnetic field. Students explore the aurora through art and writing.
Discovering Plate Boundaries (Group Assignment Slips)
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: This data-rich exercise to help students discover the processes that occur at plate tectonic boundaries is built around four global data maps: 1) Earthquake location and depth, 2) Location of recent volcanic activity, 3) Seafloor Age, and 4) Topography and Bathymetry. Alternative versions of the activity can concentrate on examining just the volcanic data and comparing the locations of volcanoes composed primarily of basalt to those of andesite and rhyolite, relative to plate boundaries. (To access all of the materials for this activity, please visit the Discovering Plate Boundaries website.)
Discovering Plate Boundaries (Main Portal)
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: This data-rich exercise to help students discover the processes that occur at plate tectonic boundaries is built around four global data maps: 1) Earthquake location and depth, 2) Location of recent volcanic activity, 3) Seafloor Age, and 4) Topography and Bathymetry. Alternative versions of the activity can concentrate on examining just the volcanic data and comparing the locations of volcanoes composed primarily of basalt to those of andesite and rhyolite, relative to plate boundaries. (To access all of the materials for this activity, please visit the Discovering Plate Boundaries website.)
Discovering Plate Boundaries (Student Instructions)
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: This data-rich exercise to help students discover the processes that occur at plate tectonic boundaries is built around four global data maps: 1) Earthquake location and depth, 2) Location of recent volcanic activity, 3) Seafloor Age, and 4) Topography and Bathymetry. Alternative versions of the activity can concentrate on examining just the volcanic data and comparing the locations of volcanoes composed primarily of basalt to those of andesite and rhyolite, relative to plate boundaries. (To access all of the materials for this activity, please visit the Discovering Plate Boundaries website.)
Discovering Plate Boundaries (Teacher's Guide Part I: Introduction)
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: This data-rich exercise to help students discover the processes that occur at plate tectonic boundaries is built around four global data maps: 1) Earthquake location and depth, 2) Location of recent volcanic activity, 3) Seafloor Age, and 4) Topography and Bathymetry. Alternative versions of the activity can concentrate on examining just the volcanic data and comparing the locations of volcanoes composed primarily of basalt to those of andesite and rhyolite, relative to plate boundaries. (To access all of the materials for this activity, please visit the Discovering Plate Boundaries website.)
Discovering Plate Boundaries (Teacher's Guide Part II: Tour of the Maps)
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: This data-rich exercise to help students discover the processes that occur at plate tectonic boundaries is built around four global data maps: 1) Earthquake location and depth, 2) Location of recent volcanic activity, 3) Seafloor Age, and 4) Topography and Bathymetry. Alternative versions of the activity can concentrate on examining just the volcanic data and comparing the locations of volcanoes composed primarily of basalt to those of andesite and rhyolite, relative to plate boundaries. (To access all of the materials for this activity, please visit the Discovering Plate Boundaries website.)
Does the Moon Rotate?
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Sun, Earth, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students make a three-dimensional model of the Earth and Moon. Using the sun's light, they discover that the Moon does rotate in the same amount of time it takes to make one orbit.
Earth, Earth's Moon, Mars Balloons
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8
Body: Earth, Mars, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Curiosity about our place in space and whether we can travel to distant worlds beyond our own depends upon understanding the size, distance and other characteristics of moons and planets in our solar system. For this activity, students will construct a balloon scale model to understand the relative sizes of the Earth, Earth's Moon and Mars in relation to each other and their relative distance to each other at this scale. They will use this model to predict distances and reflect on how scientists use models to construct explanations through the scientific process. In this collection, this activity introduces the concept of models, which will be built upon in subsequent lessons, as well as the first set of Earth/Mars comparisons.
