As part of the General Chemistry Virtual Textbook, this site examines a variety of topics related to the Earth. Topics covered in the discussion include formation of the solar system, the planets, the continents, primary differentiation...

Practice your mapping skills with Build Planet Earth! This animated 3D globe challenges players to locate the Poles, continents, countries, and cities. Colorful graphics and sound effects as well as a teacher's lesson plan are included.

Precipitation affects many aspects of our lives, from drinking water and food to devastating rain or snow storms. NASA gathered information from satellites to study factors that influence precipitation. View these narrated and unnarrated...

When Venus comes directly between the Earth and the Sun, it is called a transit. During the transit, the planet Venus blocks out a portion of the Sun's image, appearing as a black dot on the face of the Sun. Over time, the black dot...

A series of seven instructional, hour-long videos presenting Earth-science topics such as plate tectonics, oceans, climate changes, natural resources, the Sun, and the future of our planet. Closed captioning option provided for each video.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This informational text passage shares information about the history of the earth and its landforms. This passage is a stand-alone curricular piece that reinforces essential reading skills and...

There's a game of Tetris happening on a global scale: The playing space is planet Earth, and all those pesky, stacking blocks represent carbon dioxide- a greenhouse gas that is piling up ever more rapidly as we burn the fossil fuels that...

This article explains that as our knowledge of life on the planet evolves, we've come to use the word biosphere as a way of explaining the entire intertwined network of life on Earth. This concept combines an understanding of geology,...

A look into what controls the rise of oxygen on the Earth and maybe on other planets as well.

Become familiar with Jules Verne Voyager, a freely-available online map tool that includes data for Earth as well as several other planets and moons. Create a variety of map images and then save and import the images into a presentation...

Has great information on environmental clean up sites around the U.S. as well as articles about protecting the environment. It is a very clear and educational way to learn about environmental restoration.

Looking at the planet earth from space. The continent of Africa is visible behind the cloud cover as well as a large quantity of water in the blue oceans that make up a majority of the globes surface.

Students focus on the three interconnected choices global society faces as Earth's climate continues to change -- suffer, adapt, and mitigate -- to analyze and predict current and future impacts to Earth's systems. Using videos excerpted...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This passage is a stand-alone curricular piece that reinforces essential reading skills and strategies and establishes scaffolding for vocabulary learning. It can be used as both a read-aloud exercise...

Imagine a time when you can travel through space, planet to planet, cheaply and in comfort, when you can take a trip to the stars as your next holiday. Well, imagine no more. Learn more about the solar system as you take this trip of a...

A companion site to the textbook, Earth as a Living Planet. This chapter discusses global warming and how to deal with it.

Symbolizing the importance of conservation, environmentalism and the planet in general this image shows a man in black and white gently cradling a small version of a beautifully colored earth in his hands. This photos meaning is even...

Teach the concept of scale models and the size of the solar system through this extensive lesson plan. Students will learn about scale models, estimate which objects to use to create a scale model of Earth and Sun, and figure out how far...

The purpose of this lesson is to teach middle schoolers about how a spacecraft gets from the surface of the Earth to Mars. The lesson first investigates rockets and how they are able to get us into space. Finally, the nature of an orbit...

This site from The Eight Planets shows that Titan may serve as a model of a highly reduced early Earth atmosphere in which the first stages of organic chemical evolution could take place in the atmosphere.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart follows Arnie the Astronaut as he tries to get back to earth. Each page has a word problem on it with addition and subtraction. As you flip each page, Arnie moves closer to earth. Help...

A plethora of information about Asteroids. This site provides lots of in-text links to information, pictures of asteroids, a table full of information about asteroids, as well as links to more information about asteroids.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This informational text passage shares facts about planets in the solar system. This passage is a stand-alone curricular piece that reinforces essential reading skills and strategies and establishes...

Taken by Voyager 1 as it passed Jupiter in 1979, this image shows the Great Red Spot, which is a hurricane-like storm that has lasted over 300 years, and is more than three times the size of planet Earth.