Earth Science is one of those courses few teachers with any background actually teach. Those of us with any science background end up teaching this course—in any setting! Are you feeling uncomfortable with the material? You are in good company. I bet the last time you had any Earth Science was either in 8th or 9th grade. (Okay, a few people may have taken a geology or astronomy course in college.). Let’s acquire some resources! Be aware that too many science sites have an agenda. Sad. It takes time (and a strong stomach) to wade through the propaganda in order to sift out excellent material.
The National Park Service (NPS) has Rocks and Minerals with a video, and collections: Rocks, Minerals, and Beach Materials. These collections have more links, such as Mineralogy for Kids. (A few of the links are broken; however, the quality and clarity of the material makes it useful for background.) The NPS also has Geology with landforms and parks related to geology. Again, this is a good overview to geology as a topic. The park images are stellar. Start with a Geologic Tour.
USGS has a vast number of resources; the Education page can direct you to Geology, Water Resources, Natural Hazards, and the Solar System. I love USGS for its unique lessons: Water World (Five Lessons), Color by Number Mars’ Jezero Crater, and Wildland Fire School. I have used Land and People: Finding a Balance and the poster for high school classes. These lessons have three case studies. It would be interesting to compare the Los Angeles teacher and student with the same issues in 2026. Start with California Landslides.
Start with What is NASA? NASA has Read—NASA Science, NASA Knows Stories, and STEM Content. The NASA site is a mixed bag. I usually have better luck with NASA JPL: How Far Away is Space?, Solar System Scroll, and Moon Phases Calendar. The templates will give your Ecotank a workout.
National Geographic has the History of Space Travel. (I once include A Brief History of Soviet and Russian Space Travel in an Earth Science class.) National Geographic Education has Engineering Adventures in Space, Make a map of Earth, explore Cardinal Directions, learn about GIS or Meteorology. Loads of stuff. Just be judicious. I think anything map or weather related belongs in Earth Science.
NOAA seems to think Climate Science should dominate instruction. Here is an educator’s page with NOAA and The National Weather Service’s links. The National Weather Service has an online school for weather, called JetStream. One unit is Clouds, which has a Cloud Chart and background.
The American Meteorological Society has a page of links: WeatherNet, The Weather Channel, and Earth Science All Around, where you can get more ideas to teach Earth Science: Geoheritage, Google Earth Projects, or ESRI Story Maps. I have had several seminars on ESRI, GIS, remote sensing, and maps in general. Teaching about Earth Changes is a student introduction. Try GIS with Kids. If you go down this road, there are a terrifying g number of ESRI resources. Whenever I introduce some GIS to a class, there is one kiddo who loves it. Let him or her just run with it.
The Smithsonian Natural History Museum has Earth Science Resources: Volcanoes and Plate Tectonics, Asteroids and Meteorites, Geology of Gems, and a GeoGallery—plus Science Teaching Resources.
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