Hydrosphere Links For Teachers

Arranged in alphabetical order.

Groundwater

• Biospeleology: Caves, Karst, & Groundwater - From the University of Texas at Austin.
• Groundwater Foundation - The Groundwater Foundation is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to informing the public about one of our greatest hidden resources, groundwater. Since 1985, our programs and publications present the benefits everyone receives from groundwater.
• Hydrologic Cycle - Browse succinct sections on the earth`s water budget, evaporation, condensation, transport, precipitation, groundwater, runoff, and transpiration.

Hurricanes

• El-Nino and La-Nina - Information about the famous oscillations in ocean temperature and height that affect global weather patterns. Photos and satellite images are available.
• Hurricane Watch: Studying a Storm From Many Angles - This site offers images captured by NASA’s satellites showing ocean wind speed and sea surface height as they related to the development of Hurricane Floyd in September 1999.
• Hurricane Web Seminar - From the NSTA and NSDL
• NASA educational tools on hurricanes - Including posters, visualizations and graphics, and classroom activities.

Oceans

• Altered Oceans - Los Angeles Times, discover a multimedia rich investigation on the health of the world’s oceans. The conclusions are sobering.
• Blue Planet Challenge - A Natural History of the Oceans - Uses games to explore ocean topics.
• Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence - Is a new collection providing access to ocean sciences education materials with particular emphasis on K-12 audiences and instructional materials from DLESE.
• Ocean Explorer Site - Visit NOAA's redesigned site and solve the ocean challenge puzzle.
• Vent's Acoustic Monitoring Program - NOAA, “Low-frequency sound in the ocean can be "viewed" in the form of time versus frequency "spectrograms" (warm colors represent strong energy) or "listened to" if the natural sound is raised to human hearing by "speeding up" the original signals. These sample sounds represent seismic and biological sources, as well as sounds of unknown origin.”

Other (Environment, Wetlands, Water Center)

• Coastal Wetlands Study - Find material to use in developing a comprehensive study of coastal wetlands. The site includes background information, suggested activities, glossary, references, and reading list. Activities can be demonstrated by the teacher or performed by students. Emphasis is on Gulf Coast wetlands.
• Exploring the Environment: Water Quality - From Wheeling Jesuit University, Center for Educational Technologies section uses a case studies approach.
• Water Center - The Water Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Precipitation

• Investigating Stream flow - Precipitation Relationships - From the Science Education Resource Center.
• Mystery of the Megaflood - Companion site to the episode of NOVA on PBS which detailed geologic features in Washington State created by a flood.
• Search for Ice and Snow - This is an online lesson module that uses an Earth Image database (Space Shuttle images) to try to find places on Earth where there is ice and snow.
• Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission - A few educational resources that explore tropical rainfalls role in the global warming and water cycles. Resources of satellite images and information on how to interrupt these images.