Resources

We have organized below a list of resources that might interest you. If you know any other good geoscience resources for educators, please feel free to suggest their inclusion on this webpage by emailing geocat@ksu.edu. Thanks!

Teaching and Discovering STEM

A Career in Geology – Educational page for kids explaining rocks and minerals, with additional resources for kids to learn more about how they are used in our everyday lives and maybe even inspire a lifelong love of geology.

InTeGrate – InTeGrate is a community program, a collaboration between faculty in the sciences and other disciplines, educational specialists, and evaluation experts at a diverse group of institutions. It provides a variety of resources for teaching about the Earth for a sustainable future.

Center For STEAM Education – Dedicated to fostering collaboration and synergy between researchers and classroom practitioners, with the overarching goal of enriching opportunities for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) teaching and learning in K-12 schools.

Free STE(A)M Resource Hub – We created a landing page to house several resources that can be utilized to encourage continued learning while students are out of school. This page will continue to evolve as new resources are developed or to rotate through featured content, depending on the duration of time this page is featured.

STEAM Activity Guide PDF – This resource is excellent for sharing with partners looking for content to feature as they create resource hubs of their own.

STEAM Activity Blogs – We have 60+ STEAM activities on our blog you can share in your communities.

Safe, Secure, and STEM - This is a NEW blog post featuring testimonials from several school partners who help explain that the standards of Camp Invention have always been high and will continue to remain so in the future.

Virtual Visit to the NIHF Museum

Exhibits and stories of inventions and discovery
- NIHF Exhibits
- Once Upon a Try - NIHF partners with Google to Take Museums Digital

45 Sustainability Resources You Need to Know – This resource from Purdue University Global highlights 45 noteworthy sources on sustainability and is organized by the following categories: Green Living, Climate Change & Environmental Protection News, Energy and Technology, Sustainability in Business and Government, Sustainability Careers, Sustainability, and the Arts, and Ecotourism.

American Geosciences Institute - Information on scholarship programs, careers and the workforce, curricula, academic program, K-12 professional development and more.

Teach Earth - Wide range of materials for use by teachers at all levels of education, including lesson plans, activities, and expert knowledge boosters.

What is climate change? - A study guide prepared by Dr. Toby Neilson to explain the topic.

Science Communication

UTD Geonews - YouTube channel that explains the geosciences behind timely natural hazards or human activity events.

A virtual field trip to a 300-million-old ocean in Kansas

Fossils and ancient environments

Geonugget #1 It's all about Geology

Geonugget #2 Karstic terrains

Geonugget #3 Oil rig

Geonugget #4 Gypsum Hills

GeoCAT Bites

The GeoCAT Bites are materials that aim at supporting educational efforts by offering a variety of resources. We periodically post ready-to-use activities, information and/or discoveries on geoscience research that can be used to illustrate careers and/or be embedded into the class content, or information on ‘current events’ (for example, explanation of an earthquake in KS), etc.

August 2022 - The story of "Brock, the rock", which playfully explains the Rock Cycle. This material was prepared by an undergraduate student named Tristan Korff as a project for one of our introductory geology courses.

September 2022 - Activity that uses the gravel found in a parking lot to explore the relation between geology and construction materials, human impact on land and the use of natural resources, and why we use gravel on parking lots. This activity was extracted from the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey Publication ED-13.

October 2022 - Information on what the Earth was like in the Precambrian (the period between 4.6 billion to 542 million years ago) is provided in a newspaper format. This resource was prepared by Sylvia Saadat, an undergraduate student in one of our introductory Geology courses.

November 2022 - Activity that explores how grain size and sorting (the distribution of grain sizes) in a sediment affect porosity and the volume of fluids that can be stored in the pores. This activity was prepared by Minindu Kumarage, a Master's student in the Department of Geology at KSU.

December 2022 - A 'yummy' activity, introducing the rock cycle using chocolate. This activity was developed by the Geological Society of London and adapted for Earth Science Week by the American Geosciences Institute.

January 2023 - Infograph about the formation of the solar system and the process of differentiation in the Earth. It was created by Zach Smith, an undergraduate student in one of our introductory Geology courses.

February 2023 - Activity for grades 6-12 to understand past climate changes. It was prepared by the American Geosciences Institute.

March 2023 - Activity proposed by geologist Leanne Hughes from the British Geological Survey on how to build a windmill to explain how wind turbines can generate power, leading to a discussion on the energy transition.

April 2023 - Activity prepared for the Girls Research Our World (GROW) 2023 event by Dr. Cris Brazil and Dr. Karin Goldberg. "Earth’s Thermostat" explains the connection between atmospheric CO2, fossil fuels, global warming and climate change.

May 2023 - Card game created by Brady McLaughlin, an undergraduate student in one of our introductory Geology courses.

Fighting Inequality

Public Health Resources for Understanding Environmental Racism - A guide for understanding how low-income communities and communities of color are more likely to be affected by environmental racism.

Earth: Involving the Ocean

https://www.mysteriesofthedeep.org/

https://nautiluslive.org/education/resources

https://neal.fun/deep-sea/?fbclid=IwAR0WHEPCuzpgnT3KY_GTgytrwTKc9OENF_LzGGkwVEB_6UMfCveIpummcUI

Earth: Findings on Land

http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/navigation/home.cfm

https://joidesresolution.org/public/in-search-of-earths-secrets/drill-down-deeper/stories-from-the-core/

https://www.plt.org/news/earth-day-2020/

https://publiclab.org/

Discovering New Ideas

https://dataintheclassroom.noaa.gov/

https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/index.html