This week's 20 November 2004 "Earth Science Sites of the Week" feature
1) Google for scholars,
2) free earth science posters,
3) severe weather,
4) magnetic declination calculator,
5) U.S. mineral statistics.
Features:
1) Animations: NASA animations on earth processes
2) Teaching Tip: quizzes and games
3) Neat Pictures: circles at different scales
4) Good Read: "Opening Blind Eyes to Science"
5) Good Quotes: from John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Oliver Wendall
Holmes
6) Humor: comical conversions
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SITES OF INTEREST
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1) GOOGLE SCHOLAR (BETA), Google, (suggested by Sean Fox, SERC), a
complaint lodged against Google searches is the volume of useless hits
generated.
Google takes a step to address this problem. " Google Scholar enables
you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including
peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints,
abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use
Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic
publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories
and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the
web." Do a simple test. Type "earth science misconceptions" without
quotes into a regular Google search. The result: around
132,000 hits. Type the same into Google Scholar WITH quotes. The result:
less is more - 28 hits - with more reliable sources. In many cases full
text of these articles aren't available through
this mechanism but at least this engine points the way to find better
quality citations.
http://scholar.google.com/
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2) POSTERS AND LITHOGRAPHS, NASA, if you have access to a plotter, check
out the free posters that can be downloaded from Shuttle Radar
Topography Mission. Posters have dimensions of around 30" x 48" in size,
have around 10 Mb file sizes, and include such topics as mapping, geology,
terrestrial ecology, and more.
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/multimed.htm
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3) SEVERE AND HAZARDOUS WEATHER, University of Illinois, (suggested by
Kathleen Garrity, Geneseo, N.Y.), here are more than fifty online examples
demonstrating severe weather phenomena and the mechanisms for their
formation. Links to photo galleries, animations, and demonstration applets
on all topics of severe weather can be found in the left menu of each
page of this website.
http://severewx.atmos.uiuc.edu/
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4) MAGNETIC DECLINATION CALCULATOR, National Geophysical Data Center, In
addition to answering such questions as "Where are the magnetic poles?"
and "Is the Earth's magnetic field going to reverse?" the site has a
handy utility that will automatically calculate, based on your location,
the
current estimated Value for magnetic declination
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/geomag/declination.shtml
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5) HISTORICAL STATISTICS FOR MINERAL AND MATERIAL COMMODITIES IN THE
UNITED STATES, USGS, (suggested by Joseph Kerski, USGS), You've seen the
bumper sticker--If it isn't grown, it has to be mined. How important is
mining, over a century after the last gold rush in the USA? How much
manganese
is actually taken out of the ground each year? What about gold and
silver? What does the value of the mineral have to do with
how much is mined? Find all of this and much more on the USGS historical
statistics for minerals in the USA--imports, exports, production,
consumption, and value. This database is being updated as data becomes
available for 90 mineral commodities. World production data are
included when available. Data are available as XLS files for downloading
and additional statistical analysis.
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/of01-006/index.html
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FEATURES
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1) ANIMATIONS:
Scientific Visualization Studio, from NASA, (suggested by Barb
Tewksbury, Hamilton College), view over 100 QuickTime and MPEG
animations on a
variety of earth processes, mostly from a remote sensing perspective.
Topics are strongly geared toward environmental quality and hazard
issues including
volcanic eruptions, air and water pollution, landuse change, and oceanic
productivity. Animations, which open in fairly small sized windows,
can be searched by keyword or topic. In addition, animations can be
rewound, as needed, to stress important points.
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/search/Keywords/index.html
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2) TEACHING TIP:
(suggested by Tom Traeger, La Canada), find a variety of on line quizzes
and games for helping with drills in geography, vocabulary, and math.
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_menu.htm
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3) NEAT PICTURES:
Circles at different scales: (suggested by Virginia Malone, Hondo, Texas)
Green Circles - Al Khufrah Oasis, Libya, NASA - Satellite image of 1
kilometer diameter center-pivot irrigation systems in
the desert. A hint might accompany this "what is it" image - "A great
location for orienting yourself if you happen to be an astronaut aboard
the International Space Station."
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16729
Concretion: Geologic Photo Gallery, James Boles, University of
California, Santa Barbara. A Moeraki Boulder, this is one of the giant
septarian concretions found along a 40 kilometer stretch of South Island
New Zealand. Maori legend has it that the Kai-hinaki (food baskets)
were washed ashore from a shipwrecked canoe carrying some gods out
hunting for precious stones.
http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geol/mbold.jpeg
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4) GOOD READ:
Opening Blind Eyes to Science, Earth Explorers, NASA, (suggested by Dan
Stillman, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies), The latest
"Earth Explorers" article on the NASA Portal -- "Opening Blind Eyes to
Science" -- shows how blind-friendly instruments, including talking
thermometers and Braille-marked rain gauges, are allowing visually
impaired students to explore Earth in nonvisual ways.
http://earth.nasa.gov/education/explorers/
Mark Francek
E-Mail: mfrancek@xxxxxxxxxxxx or Mark.Francek@xxxxxxxxx