October 12-18, 2014
Earth Science Week is back again! The theme of ESW 2014 is Earth’s Connected Systems.This week aims to engage students in investigating how geosciences are involved in natural change processes. Understanding Earth’s systems — the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere – helps us to manage challenges we face every day. The American Geosciences Institute sponsors this fantastic week to bring attention to different aspects of geoscience. They do a wonderful job of compiling resources, events, and activities that highlight Earth sciences in your classroom through the week and throughout the entire month! Join us in taking part in this amazing week celebrating the natural world and geosciences.
What do geoscientists do?
- Discover energy resources
- Ensure our water supply is plentiful and clean
- Improve agriculture
- Predict, prepare and help mitigate the effects of natural disasters
- Study climate patterns and changes
- Improve the quality of our lives, and much, much more!
NEED is proud to partner with the American Geosciences Institute to provide support and an activity for use in the classroom during ESW 2014. Visit the ESW website to check out our activity and many others from AGI’s partner organizations! Learn more about how Earth’s systems interact and get the learning started! We’ve compiled a list of all the things you can do to get involved.
- Visit the Earth Science Website: http://www.earthsciweek.org/
o Order an ESW2014 Toolkit for your classroom
o This kit has plenty of activities and information to make participation in ESW2014 easy fun and educational for you and your students. The kit includes everything from posters to a great wall calendar to temporary tattoos!
Can’t take part in the whole week? Pick a day or two to get involved! Calendar of events and related resources:
o October 12 – International Earth Cache Day – Explore the world with a GPS Scavenger hunt!
o October 13 – Earth Sceince Literacy Day – Learn the fundamentals of Earth Science through the Big Idea literacy video series
o October 14 – No Child Left Inside Day – Get outside and explore like a pro!
o October 15 – National Fossil Day – Learn to understand and appreciate fossils!
o October 16 – Geoscience for Everyone Day – Anyone from anywhere can be a geologist; explore careers in Geoscience!
o October 17 – Geologic Map Day – Explore all the ways maps are important to us.
- Student Contests: www.earthsciweek.org/contests
o Encourage your students to enter these art, essay, and photo contests.
- Classroom Activities: www.earthsciweek.org/forteachers/classroomactivities.html
o Check out this fantastic list of activities that cover virtually ANY Earth Science topic and fit your classroom standards. NEED’s own Greenhouse in a Beaker and Exploring Porosity activities can be found here among many others from the amazing ESW 2014 partner organizations.
