Earthquakes!

In Science Methods today we were talking about teaching geology. We did several different activities: mineral identification, modeling the rock cycle, examining plate tectonic maps. I missed sharing this site in class--we just ran out of time! (Too much fun stuff...)

The U.S. Geological Survey has some really great resources to help support science and geography teachers. They have different kinds of maps available, for free, to encourage teaching geology and map skills to students at all grade levels.

In particular, I was fascinated with this interactive map page displaying information about recent earthquakes:

A screengrab from the USGS Earthquakes page.

You can customize the map to show earthquakes of different magnitudes and different lengths of time. It gives precise information as to when and where the earthquakes take place. (The legend button in the upper right-hand corner is helpful for understanding the coding scheme used on the map.) You might be surprised to see how many earthquakes have occurred in the past week or month--truly, we live on an active planet! 

This page could be a great seed for a mini-lesson. How might you use this with your kids?