"The soils in tundra, grasslands, tropical forests are very different, but they have one thing in common; they all host an astounding diversity of life. Inhabiting these underground worlds are millions of species, which play vital roles in maintaining soil health and preserving the balance of their ecosystems. A new study shows that biodiversity underground is much greater than previously thought, with a direct relationship to life on the surface. "

"Andrew Farnsworth, the project leader of BirdCast, discusses new methods to aggregate data from birders with the help of modern technology."

Enter your zipcode and download a "Pollinator Guide" with information about native plants specific to your ecoregion.

"Empower your students to collaborate and learn from each other within MixedInk's fun, social, environment. Write, edit & remix: Assign students a text to write together. Then they'll create their own versions,edit their peers' work, and weave different versions together into new ones. Comment & evaluate: Students comment on their classmates' submissions and rate different versions to identify the best written, most popular language and ideas. Discuss the top version as a class: Explore the strengths and weaknesses of the class's favorite texts together."

A great variety of unusual maps to trigger discussion, especially if you trim off the labels and ask students to speculate on what they are seeing. - World Map of Earthquakes Since 1898 - Map of Where 29,000 Rubber Duckies Made Landfall After Falling off a Cargo Ship in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean - The 7000 Rivers that Feed into the Mississippi River - Worldwide Annual Coffee Consumption Per Capita - Earth's Population by Latitude and Longitude

2 animated images showing one year of seasonal transformations on Earth, created by stitching together 12 cloud-free satellite imagery mosaics of Earth (NASA's "Blue Marble Next Generation") for each month.

"Let kids discover things on their own. Let them solve problems. One way to do this is ask questions about maps. But not just regular, turn to page 47 in your geography textbook kind of maps. But, you know, cool maps. So here ya go. A world map using only the locations of the world's runways, helicopter pads and airports." What questions can you ask? How about: Where are the developing countries? How do you know? Does location make a difference in who has access to knowledge? Does this matter? How does access to electricity impact how people live?

"Streamer is an online map service that lets anyone trace downstream along America's major rivers and streams simply by picking a point on a stream. Streamer will map the route the stream follows. You can also trace upstream using Streamer. Imagine that you're standing along the Mississippi River in New Orleans. You're wondering not only where the river began but also which other streams drained into the Mississippi River before it made its way to your location. With Streamer you can also: locate your area of interest by specifying stream or place names; by entering latitude and longitude coordinates, enter the identification number for a U.S. Geological Survey streamflow gaging station, find out the names of streams and waterbodies by clicking on them, print maps of your downstream and upstream traces, create concise or detailed reports for your upstream and downstream traces, learn about current or historic streamflow at thousands of locations along America's streams, and find out about the places your stream trace passes through with just a few mouse clicks. "

Useful videos on these topics: - What is Biodiversity? - The Science of Biodiversity - Importance of Biodiversity - Losing Biodiversity - Saving Biodiversity - Promoting Biodiversity - Videos for and by Kids

Deciding where to install wind turbines and solar panels seems straightforward: Pick gusty and sunny spots. But researchers say the problem is a bit more complicated. To get the most emissions reductions and health benefits, the United States may need to focus its clean energy efforts on some unlikely regions.

Includes a map showing that nearly half of all US shale gas and oil wells are being developed in regions with high to extremely high water stress.

Students learn about a few key migratory bird species and the USFWS National Wildlife Refuge System that conserves them, as well as the impacts of oil spills on the Gulf Coast ecosystem and its human communities. Introduces a variety of natural resource careers and the academic experience and job skills needed to be successful in these conservation positions.

Google's global, zoomable time-lapse map illustrates land use change phenomena such as the sprouting of Dubai's artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska's Columbia Glacier, deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, and urban growth in Las Vegas. "Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images-a total of 909 terabytes of data-to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year. As the final step, we worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, recipients of a Google Focused Research Award, to convert these annual Earth images into a seamless, browsable HTML5 animation."

"Global, zoomable time-lapse map... View stunning phenomena such as the sprouting of Dubai's artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska's Columbia Glacier, the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon and urban growth in Las Vegas from 1984 to 2012 Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images-a total of 909 terabytes of data-to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year. As the final step, we worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, recipients of a Google Focused Research Award, to convert these annual Earth images into a seamless, browsable HTML5 animation. Check it out on Google's Timelapse website."

TopoView is a searchable collection of historical U.S. topographic maps, published before 2009.

Multimedia, lessons, data, and background information about the Great Lakes. Includes a "Listen to the Lake" podcast and several webcams. Lessons to download relate to watershed land use, fish life cycles, invasive species, human population, and others.

"First World Problems read by Third World People" is by the non-profit "Water is Life" to ironically focus on the REALLY-CRITICAL issue of clean water. They enlisted Haitian children and adults to read the everyday gripes and minor irritations that first world citizens post on Twitter."

This animated special report by NSF profiles how scientists are using technology to track wildlife ranging from zebras to dragonflies.

A quiz of weird animal sounds assembled by Wired Magazine using recordings from Cornell's Macaulay Library

The Club-winged Manakin is a bird that makes an odd foghorn call using its wings rather than vocal chords. Through 13 short videos, this site explores how these wings "work," how they evolved, and how this was discovered by Cornell scientist Kim Bostwick.