Kindergarten and the Summer Solstice
Tomorrow is my oldest daughter’s last day of Kindergarten. We’re going to celebrate with ice cream! We might also stay up and play outside a little later tomorrow. We can do that because it won’t get dark until late in the evening as it will be the longest stretch of daylight of the year. That’s […]
“Dad, It’s Still Autumn” – Corrections from My Daughters
Those of you who have been following my blog with regularity over the last couple of years have probably seen my informal series of posts titled Questions from My Daughters. Those posts have been about answering the questions that my daughters (now ages five and six) ask me. Questions like “what do worms eat?” and […]
2022 Fall Foliage Prediction Map – And Why Leaves Change Color in the Fall
The 2022 Fall Foliage Prediction Map is a feature of the SmokyMountains.com website. The map displays a week-by-week prediction of when leaves in the continental United States will be changing colors from now through the end of November. You can see the predictions change by moving the timeline at the bottom of the map. On the same […]
NOAA Sea to Sky – 1000+ Resources for Science Teachers
Earlier this week I was checking my local weather forecast on NOAA.gov when I noticed a back-to-school announcement. The announcement highlighted some lesson plans and multimedia resources for teaching about things like hurricanes, changing sea levels, and climate resilience. The announcement also drew attention to an updated database of resources for teachers. That database is […]
Short Lessons About the Longest Day of the Year
Perhaps my favorite thing about living in northern New England is the amount of daylight we have in the summer. I enjoy the early sunrises even more than I do that late sunsets (before I had kids it was the other way around). The longest day of the year is coming up and if your […]
Five Concepts You Can Teach Through Geocaching
Geocaching is one of the things that I spend a good bit of time talking about in both my workshop and in my webinar about blending technology into outdoor learning. Geocaching is a great activity to do to get kids outside for hands-on learning experiences. Here are five things that you can teach through geocaching […]
We’ve Got Worms! And More Questions from My Daughters
Earlier this week we had some relatively warm days and were able to do a little spring yard work. My daughters like to try to help with some of it. But like most four and five year old kids, they quickly get distracted. Such was the case when they discovered some worms under some leaves […]
The USGS Multimedia Gallery Offers Excellent Public Domain Images and Videos
The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, audio recordings, pictures, and slideshows. As you might expect, you’ll also find lots of maps in the USGS multimedia gallery. You can browse and search the gallery according to media type, year of publication, and keyword. In addition to the videos in the USGS Multimedia Gallery you can […]
Resources for Teaching and Learning About Fall
It’s the first day of September and even though Autumn doesn’t really start for a few more weeks, I’m already excited for the arrival of my favorite season of the year. The heat and humidity of summer are gone, the leaves on the trees are the prettiest they’ll be all year, and I’ve always felt […]
Short Lessons on Geothermal Energy and Volcanoes
Iceland is one my favorite places to visit. (I hope to take my daughters there to hike and camp when they’re a bit older). That’s why I was excited to see a new TED-Ed lesson about Iceland released last week. To say the lesson is about Iceland doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s really about […]
A Game and a Crash Course on Weathering and Erosion
The Crash Course for Kids YouTube channel offers overviews of various topics including weather. Weathering and Erosion is the topic of one of the more recent releases on Crash Course for Kids. In the video students will see a comparison of Cape Cod’s coastline in 1984 and 2014. That image combined with the commentary does a great […]
The Freshwater Access Game
Aquation is a free iOS, Android, and web game offered by the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The game, designed for students in upper elementary school or middle school, teaches students about the distribution of clean water and what can be done to balance global water resources. In the game students select a region to […]
A Few Short Lessons About the Longest Day of the Year
It is going to be warm and sunny here in Maine today. That temperature will make it feel like summer a few days before the summer solstice. Many refer to the summer solstice as the “longest day of the year” when they really mean “longest period of daylight in a day.” But that’s beside the […]
Running Free Rivers
River Runner is a neat website that shows you how a drop of water travels from anywhere in the United States to the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. To use River Runner simply go to the site and click on any location in the United States. As soon as you […]
It’s Maple Syrup Time, Yay!
Here in Maine we’re starting to notice that the days are getting a little longer and the sun is a little higher in the sky during the day. That means, as a few of my friends pointed out on social media this week, it’s time to start tapping maple trees for syrup season. The process […]
My NASA Data Story Maps – Lesson Plans Based on NASA Data
A few weeks ago I published a summary of nine neat NASA resources for teachers and students. Shortly after that I received an email from someone at NASA who pointed me in the direction of My NASA Data. My NASA Data is much more than just a collection of datasets published by NASA. My NASA […]
The Growth of Mount Everest – A Math and Geology Lesson
Mount Everest is nearly a meter taller than it was a day ago. No, it didn’t actually grow a meter overnight. China and Nepal have agreed on a new measurement for the height of Mount Everest. There are at least two lessons that can be developed out of this news. One of the reasons for […]
Biomes and Ecoregions Interactive Map
Ecoregions 2017 is an interactive map produced by Resolve for the purpose of showing the ecoregions and biomes of the world. When you visit the map you can choose to display either ecoregions or biomes. After you make that selection you can then click on any location on the map to discover the ecoregion or […]
Deserts 101 – A Nice Nat Geo Lesson
National Geographic offers a good series of more than one hundred YouTube videos designed to provide viewers with concise explanations of the big concepts of a variety of topics in science. The series includes videos about volcanoes, plastics creation and recycling, the solar system, and invasive species. The latest video added to the National Geographic […]
5 Things You Can Teach Through Geocaching
Geocaching is one of the things that I spend a good bit of time talking about in both my workshop and in my webinar 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Learning. Geocaching is a great activity to do to get kids outside for hands-on learning experiences. Here are five things that you can teach […]
Google Earth Timelapses and Historical Imagery
Google Earth Pro (the desktop version of Google Earth) has offered historical imagery for many years. You can access that imagery by selecting the timeslider icon in the menu at the top of Google Earth when it is open on your desktop. Today, Google unveiled some updates to their Google Earth Engine Timelapse website that […]
Dig Into Mining – Virtual Field Labs and Field Trips About Copper Mining
Dig Into Mining is a free resource from Discovery Education and Freeport-McMoran (the world’s largest copper mining company). The purpose of Dig Into Mining is to help students understand how copper is mined and processed for use in products like pipes and wires. Dig Into Mining offers seven virtual labs and virtual tours that Discovery […]
USGS Multimedia Gallery – Excellent Public Domain Images and Videos
Today, I want to make sure that you’re aware of some other great materials available through the USGS Multimedia Gallery. The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, podcasts, and image galleries. You can search each collection by topic, keyword tag, or year of creation. RSS feeds are available for each gallery. In addition to […]
How Do Glaciers Move?
Five years ago my old pal Morrison (RIP) and I traveled down the Columbia Icefields Parkway. It was a great way to experience part of the Canadian Rockies including seeing the glaciers that melt and feed tributaries of rivers that will eventually reach the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans. That begged the questions of how […]
A Good Lesson on Hurricanes
The Atlantic hurricane season season is here and It’s Okay To Be Smart (produced by PBS) has a new video lesson about hurricanes. By watching Hurricanes: Engines of Destruction you can learn how the Coriolis effect influences the direction in which hurricanes rotate, the role of heat in hurricane formation, and the origin of the […]
16 Educational Resources for Earth Day 2016
Earth Day 2016 is on Friday. As I’ve done in the past, I’ve compiled a list of resources for teaching about Earth Day and environmental science in general. As was featured yesterday, Discovery Education offers a nice set of resources for teaching about the world’s coral reefs and biodiversity of the oceans. Expedition Earth Day is a […]