This is a laboratory course supplemented by lectures that focus on selected analytical facilities that are commonly used to determine the mineralogy, elemental abundance and isotopic ratios of Sr and Pb in rocks, soils, sediments and water.

"This course covers the following questions. What are the predominant heat producing elements of the Earth? Where and how much are they? Are they present in the core of the Earth? Detection of antineutrinos generated in the Earth provides: 1) information on the sources of the terrestrial heat, 2) direct test of the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE) model and 3) testing of non-conventional models of Earth's core. Use of antineutrinos to probe the deep interior of our planet is becoming practical due to recent fundamental advances in the antineutrino detectors."

Students design and construct devices to trap insects that are present in the area around the school. The objective is to ask the right design questions and conduct the right tests to determine if the traps work .

This learning video uses a simple analog setup to explore why earthquakes are so unpredictable. The setup is simple enough that students should be able to assemble and operate it on their own with a teacher's supervision. The teaching approach used in this module is known as the 5E approach, which stands for Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation. Over the course of this lesson, the basic mechanisms that give rise to the behavior of the simple analog system are explained, and further elaboration helps the students to apply their understanding of the analog system to complex fault systems that cause earthquakes

Students consider the Earth's major types of landforms such as mountains, rivers, plains, hills, canyons, oceans and plateaus. Student teams build three-dimensional models of landscapes, depicting several of these landforms. Once the models are built, they act as civil and transportation engineers to design and build roads through the landscapes they have created. The worksheet is provided in English and Spanish.

In this activity students will observe and investigate rocks in order to classify them in terms of color, shape, texture and size.

In this Earth Science activity, students will investigate rocks in an outdoor field trip. Students will be divided into groups and given a Ziploc bag to collect rocks. We will then return to the classroom, and the students will put their rocks into different groups. The different groups could be the size, shape, color, and texture of the rocks. We will then talk about the Rock Cycle and the three main types of rocks. Students will record their observations in their science journals.

This 12-minute video lesson looks at the structure of the earth. The discussion includes the crust, mantle, core, lithosphere, asthenosphere, mesosphere, outer core, and inner core. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 50 of 85]

This 8-minute video lesson looks at how the Hawaiian Islands were formed by a stationary hot spot under the Pacific plate. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 49 of 85]

This 6-minute video lesson explains how we know about the Earth's core. It shows how S-wave shadow and P-wave detection patterns give us information about the core. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 55 of 85]

This 6-minute video lesson looks at the idea of Pangaea and some of the evidence behind it. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 56 of 85]

This 6-minute video lesson coninues to look at plate tectonics. It discusses plates moving due to convection in mantle. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 48 of 85]

This 9-minute video lesson looks at refraction and focuses on refraction in seismic waves. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 53 of 85]

This 11-minute video lesson attempts to comprehend the size of the universe and the scale of the large. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 57 of 85]

This 9-minute video lesson considers seismic waves and how they are related to the composition of the Earth. It covers both S-waves and P-waves. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 51 of 85]

This 10-minute video lesson covers the structure of the Earth: The crust, mantle, and core. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 44 of 85]

This 6-minute video lesson looks at the Mohorovicic Seismic Discontinuity: the boundary between crust and mantle (or Moho). [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 54 of 85]

This 4-minute video lesson explains why S-Waves only travel in solids. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 52 of 85]

This activity gives a visual representation of how we are able to see the different layers of metamorphic rocks.

This activity is a classroom hands-on , active learning lesson where students observe and describe a familiar item, to help them observe and describe the physical characteristics of rocks.