Explore the new, interactive, digital map created from merging two United States Geological Survey (USGS) maps that depict the topography and geology of the United States. This composite is the most detailed and accurate portrait of the U.S. land surface and the ages of its underlying rock formations. The new map resembles traditional 3-D perspective drawings of landscapes with the addition of a fourth dimension, geologic time, which is shown in color.
This lesson, provided by Science NetLinks, is the fourth of a sequence of five lessons, teaching students that most of the materials and energy used by a city come from outside the city boundaries. Students will need to have at least a general working understanding of the concepts of flow (as in energy flow) and cycles (as in nutrient cycles) in order to get the most out of this lesson. The class will use various websites to investigate these processes and then create dramatic or musical skits demonstrating their understanding of the “actors” in the urban metabolism.
This activity has students plot the locations of active volcanoes on a world map to discover how these locations relate to the those of earthquakes and lithospheric plate boundaries. Students work in three groups, two of which plot earthquakes and the boundaries of the Earth’s plates. The three maps are superimposed and students discuss the relationships. This activity has an objective, a list of materials, procedure, activity answer and links and books for reference.
When you cross species boundaries, you combine the genetic or cellular material of two species. This peer-reviewed issue oriented article addresses whether it is ethical to experiment with part-human animals? Do the potential medical benefits outweigh the ethical concerns? Should guidelines be constructed for such research? How far should science go in pursuit of knowledge?
Joel Garreau analyzed the social and political forces he believed were transforming the geography of contemporary American communities. In his first book, The Nine Nations of North America (1981), Garreau argued that the existing political boundaries of North America are becoming increasingly irrelevant as regions begin to coalesce into smaller “nations,” each with its own economic, political, and cultural characteristics.
Zadeh’s paper on fuzzy sets introduced the concept of a class with unsharp boundaries and marked the beginning of a new direction by providing a basis for a qualitative approach to the analysis of complex systems in which linguistic rather than numerical variables are employed to describe system behavior and performance. This approach centers on building better models of human reasoning and decision-making.
