Science 4 - Earth Systems Websites

This site take a look at all four systems that are investiagted in thsi unit. FOr each sphere there is either an interactive simulation or a video which helps students to better understand each sphere. It should also be noted that while this website makes mention that this is for "Grades 9-12," the demonstrations in interactive tools can certainly be used by most students in elementary grades. It is simply the support materials that are available that seem to be written at a secondary level.

URL: https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/buac20-912-sci-ess-earthasystem/earth-a-system-of-systems/

This site takes an incredible amount of data, and presents it to you in real-time, allowing you to see what is happening with the atmosphere and hydrosphere in different parts of the world. It does have one small tab for the biosphere as well, but it does not seem to show much in the way of changes to the biosphere unless you have lengthy amounts of time pass. 

URL: https://earth.nullschool.net/

To introduce or review some examples of the four spheres focused upon in this unit, you can use this Blooket game to have your students look at examples from all four spheres. There are many different ways on Blooket that this can be used to introduce many different examples from each sphere or use this as a means of review.

URL: https://dashboard.blooket.com/set/6717dabf1fad108967459bc9

The Map of Life has many tools allowing the user to really look at the biosphere at a global level. There are tools that allow the user to look at a specific species, and see everything from migratory patterns to trends in overall population; there are also tools that allow a student to look at the overall biodiversity of the biosphere in different locations of the planet (like the image to the left). There are many more ways that this site can help you to teach many of the ideas behind the biosphere through the use of maps.

URL: https://mol.org/

This site is incredibly interactive in the ability to look at the various components of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and the human components of the biosphere. It is worth noting that while use of this on Chromebooks is certainly supported, having a large class who are all trying to access various layers can sometimes seem to cause slower connections among all users. You may want to focus on using this as a tool in front of your students, and move on to having all individuals using it at times when you could experiment with a smaller group of 10-12 are using it. It should also be noted that if you have any problem accessing this app from the link below, open the ArcGIS app under the Google waffle, and then open this app under the ArcGIS waffle.

URL: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/instant/atlas/index.html

What is great about this tool to help understand the hydrosphere is that it allows the user to decide how detailed of a description they would like. The link below is to the "beginner" diagram with the least amount of detail, but students can choose to look at an intermediate or advanced diagram of this sort if they would like to. 

URL: https://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle-kids-beg.html