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:
Magnetism and Electromagnetism (Teacher Guide)
Topic: Magnetism
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Earth
Mission: Earth Science (Earth)
Short Description: In this review of basic magnetism, students map field lines around bar magnets to visualize the magnetic dipole field, and create their own electromagnet using copper wire, a battery and a pencil to learn that electric currents create magnetic fields.
Mapping Magnetic Influence
Topic: Magnetism
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: This lesson is designed to allow your students to explore magnets and develop an operational definition of a magnetic "field" and an operational definition for a magnetic "pole."
Mars Pathfinder: Egg Drop and Landing
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon, Pluto
Mission: Mars Pathfinder (Mars)
Short Description: Design, build, and test a system for landing on the surface of Mars without breaking the cargo, an egg.
Measuring Solar Activity
Topic: Light and Spectra
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Our Solar System, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud
Short Description: Measuring Solar Activity is a multi-part exercise in math and physics for high school students and above. Students will learn graphing, pattern recognition by looking at satellite images and 250 years worth of data, making predictions, and recognizing spacial relationships.
Modeling the Solar System
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Short Description: This PDF contains four lessons:
1) Modeling Orbits in the Solar System. This lesson models the orbital distances between the planets and shows that the solar system is mostly empty space.
2) Modeling Sizes of Planets. This lesson compares the relative sizes of the planets to those of familiar fruits and vegetables. It also uses size to calculate density and planet composition.
3) Looking Inside Planets. This lesson involves modeling the interior structures of the planets and shows that the solid cores of the gas giants are similar in size to the Earth or Venus.
4) Search for A Habitable Planet. This lesson looks at the characteristics of planets that make them livable, their temperature, and compositions of atmosphere and surface instead of size
or orbit.
Mud Splat Craters
Topic: Planetary Surface Processes
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon, Pluto
Short Description: Observe crater formation in mud to introduce the idea of fluidized craters as seen on the surface of Mars.
MY NASA DATA Lessons
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: MY NASA DATA microsets are created using data from NASA Earth science satellite missions and provide information on Earth's atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, ocean and land surface. There are a variety of lessons using these data.
Planetary Geology #5 Comparative Cratering Processes
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Short Description: This activity will illustrate the similarities and differences in craters formed by three different cratering processes: impact, volcanic explosion and volcanic eruption.
Plasma Wars (Student Text)
Topic: Magnetism
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Mission: Genesis (Our Solar System)
Short Description: Students use iron powder to model the solar wind, moving under pressure created by a pipette, encountering and interacting with an enclosed magnetic field. The student text introduces the idea of planetary diversity not only in the shape, size and strength of the planetary magnetospheres, but also in the types and sources of the high-energy charged particles that occupy them.
Plasma Wars (Teacher Guide)
Topic: Magnetism
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth
Mission: Genesis (Our Solar System)
Short Description: Students use iron powder to model the solar wind, moving under pressure created by a pipette, encountering and interacting with an enclosed magnetic field. The student text introduces the idea of planetary diversity not only in the shape, size and strength of the planetary magnetospheres, but also in the types and sources of the high-energy charged particles that occupy them.
