If you fear taking your students outside might be misinterpreted by observers as an undeserved recess, think again. With the slogan, No Child Left Inside–actually an official act of Congress–the American Geological Institute (AGI) is once again promoting Earth Science Week.  Need a little more motivation? Read this excerpt from Last Child in the Woods, the original inspiration for both the Congressional act and the Earth Science Week theme. Still not convinced? Then how about this brief article summarizing research findings that suggest ADHD kids benefit from getting outdoors.

Now that you are willing to get students outside, what should you do with them? Consider this nicely structured lesson from the USGS to illustrate concepts in mapping, geologic time, and the nature of geology including the theme of mystery: GeoSleuth Schoolyard. 

Looking for more than just a one shot deal? How about constructing a couple of weather stations around the school grounds, and allowing students to take turns collecting the daily data? The data can be manipulated, graphed and interpreted. Data over the years can accumulate and patterns discerned. Correlations can be observed between weather patterns and observations of living things.

Are your students under the impression earthquakes don’t happen in your part of the country? Well they might be surprised to find out they do! Check out recent quake activity in the northeast US, for example, at this USGS site: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/LCSN/recenteqs/ Similar maps are available for other parts of the country.

A story published October 8, 2008  called How Many Earthquakes Are There? relates recent research findings that suggest the number of 3.3 and under magnitude quakes is underestimated and can be adjusted using new methods. “This advancement is important because one way scientists estimate the number of large, damaging earthquakes is to study the distribution of small earthquakes.” You can click on other earthquake related stories from there.

Last summer, our Exemplary Resources for Middle School Math and Science blog gave teachers a heads up on the week with the July 14th entry. We encourage you to peruse that entry for several helpful Earth Science related Explore-in-Depth publications and please, please don’t leave any child inside!

We Need Your Help

We want and need your ideas, suggestions, and observations. What would you like to know more about? What questions have your students asked? Do you have a favorite activity that you would like to share? We invite you to share with us and other readers by posting your comments. Please check back each week for our newest post or download the RSS feed for this blog. You can also request email notification when new content is posted (see right navigation bar).

Let us know what you think and tell us how we can serve you better. We want your feedback on all of the NSDL Middle School Portal science publications. Email us at msp@msteacher.org.