Earth Science Education Activities:
Professor Larry Braile' Earth Science Education Activities
Seismology Resources for Teachers
GIS/GPS Information
ESRI
ESRI is the company that makes ArcExplorer, a free Geographic Information System (GIS) software. They are based in California and have a very large user conference every year. The link to the free software called “ArcExplorer” is:
http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/
If you have access to the licensed (not free) “ArcView” software, there is a module with data that is specifically for education, called “ArcVoyager”:
http://www.esri.com/industries/k-12/education/voyager.html
This is a summary (in pdf form) of ESRI’s view of integrating the technology into K-12 education:
http://www.esri.com/industries/k-12/download/docs/k12educ2.pdf
Somebody at ESRI has written a book called “Fun with GPS” that may give some ideas as to what you can do with the GPS unit. The link below is to a press release explaining a bit more about the book. Also, Amazon carries it if anyone is interested.
http://www.esri.com/news/releases/05_3qtr/fun_with_gps.html
ESRI is also sponsoring a lesson plan competition. The deadline is close (Oct. 16, 2006) but it still may be a good way to get started on making a lesson:
http://www.esri.com/getting_started/education/arclessons.html
Other sources
Here’s a sample activity developed through Cornell’s GK12 program. Haven’t actually done this activity it can give you an idea of what can be done with ArcExplorer:
http://csip.cornell.edu/Curriculum_Resources/CSIP/Siemens/GIS_Activity3_Student.doc
Here’s a project from Columbia University:
http://metroeast_climate.ciesin.columbia.edu/edumod.html
Google Earth Plus lets you download your GPS points to the Google Earth (you can’t upload points):
http://earth.google.com/earth_plus.html