Freely Available Seismic Data

Interested in tracking seismic activity or visualizing earthquake waves? IRIS – Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology – is a consortium that is funded by the National Science Foundation to operate scientific facilities for the acquisition, management, and distribution of freely available seismic data. 

The Transportable Wave Visualizations enable viewers to watch seismic waves from around the world travel across the United States. 

 The Seismic Monitor lets you monitor earthquake activity in near real time. In addition, there are links to Earthquake Headlines, Last 30 Days Earthquakes, Special Events, Plate Tectonics, and Education Links.

The education resources are also available from the Education and Outreach link on the front page, which includes links to animations, video lectures, lessons and resources, teachable moments, educational software, and seismographs in schools.

Thank you to blogger Karen Brooks who posted the link to the seismic monitor on Facebook.

Google Launches Midterm Election Projection Mapping

Finally a gadget for the social sciences! Check out the 2010 U.S. Election Ratings that Google released this week.  It is an online mapping system that tracks projected winners in a number of federal and state political races. The company says its goal is “to make tracking the blues and reds a little easier for armchair pundits.” Google partnered with four nonpartisan, political analyst sources to launch the service. Users can view House, Senate and governor race projections from Cook, Rothenberg, CQ-Roll Call and RealClearPolitics. The information is presented on a map that’s updated whenever the sources make changes to their data. See the gadget below, or use this link: http://maps.google.com/intl/en_us/2010election/ratings.html


The mapping system is embeddable, Friedman said. The new gadget is powered by Fusion Tables, which directly integrates into Google Maps API v3, the blog post stated, and built on free, commonly available Google technologies.

Operation: Tectonic Fury from the JASON Project

 The latest JASON Curriculum is titled “Operation Tectonic Fury” and focuses on unlocking the Earth’s geologic mysteries and examines how it has changed over the past billion years. The Operation has four missions which includes a complete curriculum, video, digital labs, and interactive games. Mission 1 looks at the Earth’s building blocks where students will learn how to identify rocks and minerals and explain how they are classified by their physical and chemical properties. In Mission 2 students will investigate the Earth’s changing face, weathering, erosion and soils. For Mission 3 students will analyze the evidence by dating and identifying fossils, and understanding geologic time. Mission 4 focuses on the Earth on the move when students study plate tectonics, earthquakes and volcanoes.

 The curriculum is FREE – just register on the JASON website for access to science units on geology, energy, ecology, and weather!

Resources to Study Hurricanes

Get ready to study hurricanes and other weather events. Read about some great resources below. Many of these are from the blog Free Technology For Teachers.

1. Forces of Nature is a film produced by National Geographic designed to educate students about volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes. The Forces of Nature website includes interactive activities, a glossary, complete lesson plans for teachers of students in grades K through 12, and links to resources, like Chasing a Tornado. The movie, Forces of Nature is available at Amazon for $17.00, but the lesson plans and activities can be used even if you don't have the movie.

Free Technology for Teachers also recommends a similar film from National Geographic titled Violent Earth. Violent Earth can be viewed for free on Snag Films.

2. Stop Disasters is a game designed for students to learn about natural disasters, disaster prevention, and city design.

3. In addition to searching around the globe, Google Earth is a good tool that teachers and students can use to track the movement of a hurricane. Click on the link to view a video by Frank Taylor on; using Google Earth to track storms.

4. NOAA has a free nineteen page booklet that explains how hurricanes are formed, the structure of hurricanes, and how hurricanes are observed.

5. Snag Films, is currently hosting a documentary titled Katrina's Children, which explores the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans through the viewpoints of children from New Orleans.

6. The JASON Project was founded in 1989 by Dr. Robert D. Ballard, the oceanographer and explorer who discovered the shipwreck of RMS Titanic. JASON offers award-winning middle school science curricula. The current curriculum, Operation: Tectonic Fury, investigates the geologic mysteries of the Earth. Previous curricula include Operation: Infinite Potential, Operation: Resilient Planet, and Operation: Monster Storms. The online JASON Mission Center contains student text, videos, games, teacher tools and more. Registration is completely free, for educators and students.