Jacob Corl

This is a bundle of all my materials and resources I use for my storms unit. This unit for me branches from thunderstorm development (instability in atmosphere, latent heat), dangers of thunderstorms (lightning, straight line winds, flooding, hail (interactive)), air masses/fronts, tornado development (interactive and project), understanding global weather, and reading weather maps (interactive and project). I;ve grouped so much of this together, because it all ties into each other in the end.

This contains my plate tectonics unit for my 9th grade Earth/Space science class. It's simple and concrete from start to finish. The introduction, notes, and project all tether together. This is largely inquiry based and depends on the ability of students to synthesize information as you go along. The whole unit may take me about 2 weeks. The culminating project and the introductory portion are the most time intensive aspects.

An easy and pre-packaged introduction to continental drift, seafloor spreading, and ultimately plate tectonics. This inquiry driven activity will allow you to start from the beginnings of continental drift theory and work with students through the thoughts and methodology behind where we derived our modern day understanding of tectonic plates. This whole activity will take several days including discussion, work, etc, however I've found that it helps students truly understand how this theory c

This bundle includes my cornerstones for my volcano unit. The notes are PDF format and pretty open. I don't give concrete definitions, but rather run a class discussion to elicit our own notes. In terms of the assignments, all work/projects/ exercises are inquiry driven. Everything in the work is tethered back to the notes somehow. I've even added in my Yellowstone project that I use for my advanced classes. It is a bit more involved, but if you have a class you want to push a bit, that is

This document is a short mineral unit I do each year. The whole unit takes about two weeks. Included is a student guide, a teacher answer key for the guide, and quizzes for three separate mineral sections. I usually group them into 6 and build the quizzes cumulatively as I move forward. I have also included my MODIFIED quizzes for these as well. The only catch is that you would need the same minerals. If not, you could always modify certain ones for your own that you have in your classroom

This is a fun mini lab where students will create hail inside a test tube. I find this is always an attention getter in class whenever students are forced to explain what they are seeing. I use white boards and their responses as a discussion tool. I can say this is a lesson that always resonates with kids year after year. Simple and mind boggling!

This mini project will pit students against one another to come up with a creative and informative way to demonstrate their knowledge of plate boundaries. Students will be given the opportunity to consolidate their information they learned from plate boundaries and create a short project conveying that information. I like to compare student projects to one another and grade them based on the quality of their work and creativity. This is what I call "competitive grading". It tends to bring ou

This ZIP file contains several simple quizzes, worksheets, and a webquest for a basic oceanography unit. These are good filler activities and small exercises for many different levels. Feel free to modify as you wish!

This is a fun way to begin a volcano unit. I assign students this scenario where they are put at the slopes of Mt. St. Helens and are forced to escape before the volcano erupts. There are several parameters put in place to restrict how far they can move in a given time. The point of this is to have them critically think of creative ways to escape in a given amount of time. I make them show their math and thought process as they go through this. This is guaranteed to frustrate and challenge

This is a comprehensive research activity I do with my advanced Earth/Space science class. Students are separated into groups and undergo an analytical review of Yellowstone in an attempt to predict when and where it will erupt. Throughout the project each student in the group is responsible for looking at a certain aspect of the volcano (gas emissions, seismic data, magma activity, ground deformation). In the end they must create a compelling argument to convince me (the "expert" - no, I am

This project is designed to help students generate awareness about tornadoes to the "general public" . The topics are contoured to groups of 4 (ideally). Students will have a research component and then a final project component. The final product can be a video or poster. I have rubrics attached.

This is another simple demonstration that goes a long way in helping to explain tornado formation. I always have students use white boards to draw and describe what they see. This is excellent for inquiry based learning in the classroom. I use it as a springboard into the tornado section (see tornado project in the "storms unit bundle").

This lab is designed to get students to carry out a procedure in which they will try to predict when balloons will erupt. The materials are simple, but the analog here is predicting volcanic eruptions based on given data around a dormant volcano. With my advanced classes I also incorporate real time data around a place like Yellowstone to try to predict when that will erupt. This version here though is very basic and easy to use in a multitude of classes and grades!

This exercise has students use the hawaiian Islands to calculate the rate at which the Pacific plate is moving. This is a fairly straight-forward exercise and would be used in conjunction with my notes in my Volcanoes bundle. I also do this using Google Earth, but this works in case the internet is "not working" for students.

As you break down volcanoes, students need to understand how magma contributes to the size, shape, and eruptiveness of volcanoes. This simulation is a good inquiry-based exercise where students will have to connect concepts they see during the simulation. The terms are usually unfamiliar to them, but make sure they stick to some concrete connections. You can guide them with that. This usually presses the higher achieving students.

This is a set of miscellaneous activities, labs, worksheets, game, and assessment for an intro to the atmosphere unit. Feel free to use as is, or modify to your liking!

This is a simple practice with forecasting. I use the weather.gov/forecastmaps for my forecasting in my class. For 9th grade it is enough to get them looking at the different variables and "predicting" what they think will happen. This leads into my culminating weather activity, which is trying to create an actual weather forecast. This can all be found in the "Thunderstorms Unit Bundle".

For the air masses and fronts section of the notes outline used in the thunderstorms unit bundle. Here is an additional link if you would like the inquiry-based version in my notes. https://learn.weatherstem.com/modules/learn/lessons/105/index.html

This is a simple introductory activity to have students plot where most thunderstorms occur annually. This is a lead-in to look at what causes thunderstorms to occur where they do. This is used in conjunction with the notes in the unit bundle.

This assignment can be used in conjunction with the "making sense of magma" item in my volcanoes bundle pack. This is a very straight-forward assignment in which students will plot the location of various types of volcanoes. Based on the location, they will come up with reasonings as to why certain types of volcanoes tend to form where they do. This would lead into discussion on factors contributing to volcano formation.