Welcome
to the Teacher's Lounge
Scientists
are explorers. That is why we have called this module the
Earth Science Explorer.
We want your students to become explorers, and to help them, we have
created our folksy guide and Internet poet, Explorasaurus.
Scientists
explore by observing natural phenomena, working through data sets created
by others, doing experiments, and forming and testing hypotheses. The
process of exploration is rarely linear, but it has certain elements
of organization. The
organization of information in this module is not linear. The module
is structured similar to museums where different floors in the building
contain information that is grouped according to topics, and where visitors
are free to explore and choose that which is relevant to their search.
Currently
the Earth Science Explorer module has two main floors. The Earth floor
presents some of the fundamentals of Earth science such as cycles, spheres,
and geologic time. The Dinosaur floor presents a complex issue of dinosaur
extinction, which we hope will interest your students. Several possible
hypotheses for what could have caused the extinction such as a giant
impact, supernova, and disease also have been provided. Because
of the complexity of the topic, your students may need to explore more
than one hypothesis. How many
they explore is up to you.