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Did it sneak up on you again this year? Kidding aside, Richter Scale Day is April 26, the birthday of Charles Richter (1900-1985), inventor of the Richter scale. Most middle school science curricula include earth science studies in plate tectonics and its related phenomena, including earthquakes. Catastrophic events, such as the recent Italian earthquake, provide teachable moments. What better time to integrate a study of the Richter scale technology with science content?

You didn't miss Richter Scale Day, did you?

An active volcano in Antarctica? No way!

In this podcast, Eric Muller, science educator for the Exploratorium Teacher Institute in San Francisco, California provides a hands-on, "feet-on" way of teaching about volcanoes and the layers of the Earth. Students draw a scale model of the Earth on a ground with a piece of chalk.

In this activity, students will collect weather data over several days or weeks, graph temperature data, and compare the temperature data with averaged climate data where they live. Understanding and interpreting local weather data and understanding the relationship between weather and climate are important first steps to understanding larger-scale global climate changes.

Nice activity where students collect, analyze, and compare temperature data and compare the data to local climate data.

This publication is all about developing your middle school students' understandings of earths oceans and the major effect they have on climate. Understanding and interpreting local weather data and understanding the relationship between weather and climate are important first steps to understanding larger-scale global climate changes. Activities that ask students to collect and analyze local weather data as well as analyze global data can be found in the Lessons and Activities section. Analyzing and interpreting data is a major focus of this publication. Numerous data sets can be found in the Sources for Real Data section. The Background Information section and the article Tomorrows Forecast will help reinforce your own content knowledge.

More exemplary resources from the Middle School Portal 2: Math & Science Pathways project.