USGS Education
Explore our Topographic Map Resources for Teachers to find more ideas for teaching about topographic maps.
Additional information about working with U.S. Topographic Maps can be found at our Topographic Map Resources for Teachers page.
Additional resources on natural hazards can be found at our Natural Hazards Gateway.
Additional classroom resources are on our Do We Take Minerals For Granted? website, our Mineral Commodity Fact Sheets, and in A World of Minerals in Your Mobile Device.
In this ready-to-use lesson, students learn that a rock's properties tell stories about where it came from and where it has been. The lesson illustrates how to make geologic observations and gives background about the important properties of rocks to observe. Students then use those observation skills to describe rocks they find on their own Schoolyard.
Learn about the basics of tsunamis and their non-seismic sources in a new, archived lecture that's targeted to the general public, Unusual Sources of Tsunamis: From Krakatoa to Monterey Bay.
Find more information about tsunamis at:
Posters are available in both grade school and middle school versions with targeted activities. Some posters include a Spanish-language version.
Printed copies of these posters are no longer available from the USGS, but the files are easily downloaded in PDF or JPG formats.
Find many resources on our Education--Learn About Water website.
More classroom materials for learning about maps are available on our pages for Primary, Secondary, and Undergraduate grades.
Damaging earthquakes can potentially occur in many parts of the United States. Are you prepared to survive and recover quickly? Do your students know what to do during an earthquake, whether they're at school or at home?
The ShakeOut website includes state-specific resources and educational materials. Be sure to check out the videos and "Drill Broadcast" recordings.
Find more classroom-friendly information about minerals by exploring our Mineral Facts and FAQs and our collection of Mineral Commodity Fact Sheets.
Explore additional information on our Student and Career Opportunities website, including our new General Information Product about Grant Opportunities for Academic Research and Training.
Explore our list of Topographic Map Resources for Teachers to find additional materials.
An excellent NOVA production, (In the Path of a Killer Volcano) is available on YouTube. It follows USGS scientists before, during, and after the eruption, and is sure to inspire future volcanologists.
See what other volcano teaching resources are available. Our Alaska Volcanoes Guidebook for Teachers has many activities that can be applied to volcanoes in other parts of the world.
Try our activity for using macaroni or beans to estimate the size and occurrence of floods. The activity is on the back side of our Watersheds poster. Additional activities are on the back of our other Water Education posters.
Discover many more photographs and videos (all copyright-free) on our Hawaiian Volcano Observatory website (images with a USGS logo in the corner link to videos) and through our Find An Image! page.
Download spectacular, copyright-free photographs of bees and other insects and follow our USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Laboratory on Instagram.
Our Tracking Change over Time lesson plans (grades 5-8), show students how to compare satellite images over time to study the changing Earth. They can even use the included Multispec software to create their own Earth as Art images.
This is an especially good lecture for classroom use, with simple descriptions and demonstrations of concepts.
Find educational materials for earthquakes at our Earthquake Hazards Program Learning site.
Explore more biology-related projects, games, stories, and activities on the USGS Kids website.
Find many more classroom-friendly videos on our Educational Videos and Animations website.
Find out what happened in a new, online Public Lecture: The April 25, 2015 Gorkha, Nepal Earthquake - An Expected Event that Defied Expectations. This lecture is targeted to the general public, and is appropriate for high school and college level students.
Learn more at the USGS Event Page for the Nepal earthquake.
Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the website to register for automated volcano and earthquake feeds, like the Earthquake Notification Service, which can be customized for specific locations and earthquake sizes.
Public domain photos are posted daily on several USGS social media sites.
Photos range from medium to high resolution. Find images by navigating directly to them, or search by keyword. The possibilities for classroom use are endless. Have your students search on "mine" and compare the appearances of mines (both on ground and aerially) in different parts of the country.
Our most popular classroom map, This Dynamic Planet, includes impact craters along with volcanoes, earthquakes, and tectonic plates. A global Earth Impact Database is maintained by the Canadian Planetary and Space Science Centre
These maps were designed to help both the public and scientists understand the overall appearance and topography of the Moon. Locate features of interest, including Apollo landing sites and specific impact craters.
Explore more USGS astrogeology resources including online lectures, videos, and photographs.
Learn about water basics, surface water, groundwater, and the water cycle.
Have your students take the surveys in the Activity Center and discuss how students in different locations might respond to the questions.
Explore additional resources on our Induced Earthquakes website.
Be sure to try our tools for making Custom Hazard Maps and Custom Earthquake Probability Maps for the area around your school (though they don't, at this time, incorporate induced seismicity).
Japanese history records a mysterious tsunami in 1700 that was unaccompanied by the usual earthquake. Modern USGS research has traced the source of that tsunami to a large seismic event on the Cascadia Subduction Zone of Washington and Oregon. Watch our videotaped public lecture to find out how sleuthing into the past helps us learn about geologic hazards of the present.
Get the full story in our publication The Orphan Tsunami of 1700--Japanese Clues to a Parent Earthquake in North America.
Additional classroom materials are in the Water sections of our Primary (grades K-6), Secondary (grades 7-12), and Undergraduate Resource pages.
Explore multiple tools for bringing satellite imagery into the classroom with the in our new Fact Sheet. These resources meet standards related to Earth and Human Activity.
Forecast earthquakes for your own location: have your students try out the USGS Earthquake Probability Mapping website by entering a zip code to generate earthquake probability maps for different magnitudes and time periods.
Also explore the most recent forecasts for earthquakes in California.
Find more resources on our Flood Information website, and in our fact sheet on Significant Floods in the United States During the 20th Century
Looking for a simple explanation of why earthquakes occur in Nepal?
Start with our summary poster for the April 25 magnitude 7.8 earthquake. Our classroom-friendly website on plate tectonics (This Dynamic Earth) has a special page about The Himalayas: Two Continents Collide. For a good visual reference, download a free PDF of our companion map, This Dynamic Planet.
The federal government's Pathways Program is an espcially good option, with some internships that offer conversion to full-time positions.
Watch USGS interns and former interns (who are now full-time employees) describe their experience.
Find more information at our Careers and Student Opportunities website.
Find more tsunami information and classroom materials at our Tsunamis and Earthquakes website and at our Could it Happen Here? website.
Learn more about the geology of our planets by browsing the USGS Astrogeology Science Center solar system website.
Downloadable planetary globe models are a great way to stimulate interest in planetary science.
Additional information is on our Careers and Student Opportunities website.
We also have games, puzzles, and online quizzes that children can pursue on their own. Try USGS Kids (ecosystems), Water Science for Schools, and Earthquakes for Kids.
Each week, a recent satellite image is posted along with one (or more) older images showing change over time. A detailed explanation of the images is included, along with a link for downloading them (free registration on Earth Explorer is required). Find more classroom-friendly satellite images of environmental change at our Earthshots website.
Find more water-related activities at our Water Science for Schools website and on the back side of the Water Education posters.
Find a wealth of additional information on our list of USGS Resources for Working with Topographic Maps and our 27 Ideas for Teaching with Topographic Maps.
Students of all ages will have fun learning more about Mars by putting together one of several paper models of the red planet.
The animations are not a prediction of sea level rise, but rather illustrate areas of low elevation by using a blue color that simulates coverage by water. The numbers of people in those areas are tabulated.
Learn more at the website for the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
The National Map is now launching an improved and revised digital "Set of 100 Maps" using a simple online viewer. The initial release includes five maps from different parts of the country; additional maps will be added every few months. Go here to find more ideas for teaching with topographic maps.
A fun way to learn more about these satellites and their imagery is to watch a high-resolution, 1-hour public lecture, Looking Down On Our Planet: New satellite imagery reveals a changing global surface.
Also explore Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change, an educational site full of before and after satellite images with detailed information for the classroom.
Be sure to explore Lessons and Activities for topographic maps.
Learn about the importance of healthy coastal wetlands along the Gulf coast and in other locations through this online teaching guide. Each topic includes a classroom activity to illustrate the concept. A glossary, reading list, and resources for additional activities are included. For elementary and middle school students.
As a supplement, watch a new 8-minute video about the Effects of Sea-Level Rise on Coastal Wetlands in the Mississippi Delta and a new 7-minute video about the Impacts of Hurricanes on Salt Marsh and Mangrove Wetlands.
Watch two fascinating new videos in which USGS scientists recount their experiences during the eruption, and the eruption is shown to have triggered a growth in volcano science and volcano monitoring.
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey