Geology

Use these sites to help your students explore and get excited about geologic topics and processes.

Wisconsin | Rocks and Minerals | Caves | Glaciers | Earthquakes | Volcanoes

Ask A Geologist, from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), invites students to submit questions for earth scientists to answer. Make sure they first search the Web site before sending in a question!

The Geology Wing at the University of California-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology is an online exhibit that journeys through Earth's geologic history to explore stratigraphy, life, fossils, and tectonics of various time periods.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Geology Museum provides geology lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school students.

The Illinois State Museum provides a geologic history of The Midwestern U.S. 16,000 Years Ago, with information on Pleistocene-era plants and animals and animated maps depicting the retreat of the glaciers in North America.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) site Geology in the National Parks, for middle and high school students, includes a glossary and information on plate tectonics, rocks and minerals, geologic time, caves, and glaciers. Students also can take virtual tours of geologically interesting national parks.

Park Geology Tour, from the National Park Service, allows you to choose geologic features-caves, glaciers, volcanoes-and then virtually tour national parks that have them.

This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics is a USGS book that can be viewed online or downloaded and printed.

The NASA Kids site's On the Move explains continental drift and plate tectonics.

The National Geographic Society's Fantastic Journeys: Yellowstone takes students on a virtual tour of geologic features of Yellowstone National Park.

Earth Today, from the National Air and Space Museum, shows how Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere interact.

Geology Labs Online, from California State University, offers Web-based lab activities to enhance high school and college learning of geology and other earth sciences.

A Paleo Perspective on Global Warming, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), gives a scientific explanation of global warming and paleoclimactic data from the past 600 years. Site also available in Spanish.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin's Glacial Landscape, from the Ice Age Park and Trail Foundation, is a guide to Wisconsin's glacial period.

Glacial Features of Central Wisconsin describes the glacial history of Portage County with photographs and text.

The Virtual Silurian Reef, site from Milwaukee Public Museum, explains Wisconsin's geologic history. A virtual diorama lets students explore the reef that covered Wisconsin during the Silurian period.

K-12 Resources from Milwaukee Public Museum includes geologic maps and a time scale that can be downloaded and printed for classroom use.

The Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Web site provides information about the survey's publications, including maps such as "Bedrock Geology of Wisconsin" and "Early Vegetation of Wisconsin."

Rocks and Minerals

Rock Hounds, from the Franklin Institute Science Museum, gives elementary students information on many types of rocks and how they were formed.

A group of fourth graders created Get Ready to Rock, a Web site about rocks and minerals of all types. Find information about igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks, as well as instructions for activities such as growing crystals or rock polishing.

Created by elementary students for the ThinkQuest Junior competition, A Wonderful World: Earth explores rocks and minerals.

This Planet Really Rocks: All About Rocks and Minerals is another student-created ThinkQuest Junior Web site especially helpful to kids interested in rock-collecting.

The Rock Cycle from the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College features animations designed to help students and teachers visualize processes such as igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock formation.

Annenberg's Rock Cycle interactive lets students create a virtual rock collection as they learn about the three main types of rock, find out how to tell the different rock types apart, and see how rocks change from one type into another.

Athena Mineralogy, from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, has lists of minerals with their chemical formulas, a searchable database, and mineral photos.

The Mineral Gallery provides photographs and descriptions of minerals by name, class, and other groupings.

The Nature of Diamonds, from the American Museum of Natural History, presents an illustrated look at the history and geology of the diamond.

Caves

The USGS's Geology of Caves offers a guide to caves and cave formations.

The Formation of Caves, from Kentucky Caverns, describes cave formation and ecology, with a glossary and student activities.

Geology of Mammoth Cave surveys the geology of the longest cave in the world, located in Kentucky.

The Virtual Cave explores four major types of caves with photos, drawings, and text. Created by an amateur caver who is also a photographer, the site provides many photographs of cave formations.

Glaciers

Glacier's Glaciers is part of an electronic field trip from Glacier National Park. It includes a narrated slide show explaining about the formation and disappearance of glaciers.

Glacier National Park Geology discusses geologic features of the park and describes glaciers and glacial landforms.

Glacier, from Rice University in Houston, Texas, is a Web site about Antarctica and the role that continent plays in our global weather and climate system. A section on ice contains lots of information on glaciers and ice movement.

Gifts of the Glaciers, from the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, provides an illustrated overview of Great Lakes geology.

Earthquakes

Earthquake!, from National Geographic Kids magazine, provides easy-to-read information and a video about earthquakes for younger students.

Earthquakes, from the Tech Museum of Innovation, presents a multimedia overview of earthquakes.

The National Earthquake Information Center, from the USGS, features clickable real-time maps depicting current seismic activity.

Savage Earth, from PBS, gives information about earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, including simple animation of several geologic processes.

Plate Tectonics, the Cause of Earthquakes, from the University of Nevada, provides images and technical information about plate tectonics.

Volcanoes

Volcano! How are volcanoes formed? What do eruptions look like? How do certain volcanoes behave? Younger students can watch volcano videos and learn more about "mountains of fire" from this online National Geographic Kids magazine feature.

Designed for students and teachers, Volcano World features information from volcano experts across the country, great volcano photos and video clips, up-to-date news on eruptions, lesson plans, and activities for kids.

Beauty and the Beast is a site created by Hawaii elementary students that contains information about volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis.

Volcanoes Online is an illustrated guide to plate tectonics and volcanoes. This student-created site also includes games, comics, and lesson plans.

Volcanoes, from the USGS Learning Web, gives basic information about volcanoes for students, lesson plans for grades 4-8, and links to related USGS and government Web sites.

Cascades Volcano Observatory Educational Outreach from the USGS provides lots of information and photographs of volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest.

The USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory provides information about Hawaiian volcanoes, including photographs and current eruption reports.

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