USGS Menlo Park Science Center Earth Science Day 16 October 2008 Exhibits
Exhibit List as of 7 October 2008 - More Information Soon
Learn more about our October 16, 2008 Earth Science Day
| Exhibit Title Exhibitors - USGS Scientists unless otherwise noted | Exhibit Description | CA grade 2-6 Science Standard and Link to USGS [or exhibitor] Topic Information |
| Visit Kilauea volcano in Hawaii Joel Robinson and Dina Venezky | Learn about the incredible ongoing Kilauea eruption. View recently erupted rocks. Match the green and black sands to the rocks they used to be. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Volcanoes and Rocks http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/ |
| Visit the Long Valley Caldera Region (Eastern California) Stuart Wilkinson, Maggie Mangan, Dave Hill, Mitch Pitt, and Dina Venezky | Learn about the Long Valley Caldera regioin including the geothermal springs at Hot Creek and the CO2 at Horseshoe Lake. Watch CO2 experiments and float pumice. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Volcanoes http://lvo.wr.usgs.gov/ |
| Identify Volcanic Rocks Mike Clynne | Use your hands, eyes, and magnifying lenses to investigate classic volcanic rocks. Bring your own rocks for identification by our master geologist. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Volcanoes and Rocks |
| Visit Yellowstone Volcano Observatory Jake Lowenstern | Explore Yellowstone to learn about past eruptions and how scientists monitor what's happening now. Learn how calderas are formed. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Volcanoes http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo |
| Be a Field Assistant: Help find a place to camp Dina Venezky and others | Join us as our field assistant. Your task is to find our field area on a topographic map and determine where we are going to camp. How flat is our campsite? How far are we from our work? | Investigations: Maps |
| Reunite Gondwana - Plate Tectonics Puzzle Bob Tilling and Dina Venezky | Reunite the plates to how the earth looked 225 million years ago. This exercise for students is the first in a series to complement the This Dynamic Planet Map and This Dynamic Earth Book. | Investigations: Maps http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/about/edu/dynamicplanet/wegener/index.php/ |
| Teacher Resource Table Liz Colvard and others | Free maps, posters, postcards, factsheets, and more are available for teachers and parents. | Almost all areas http://www.usgs.gov |
| Topo Salad Trays: 3D models of Angel Island and Monterey Canyon Florence Wong, Mike Torresan, Angie Lam | Clear-plastic stacking trays with a contour line drawn on each tray. Students assemble trays to see 3D models of landforms and undersea features. A good way to teach about contour lines. | Investigations: Maps http://online.wr.usgs.gov/outreach/topo_instructions.html |
| National Parks in 3D Phil Stoffer, Anne Rosinski, and CGS staff | Use red-green glasses to view 3D photographs from National Parks across the United States | Shaping Earth's Surface http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/ |
| Fluorescent Mineral Display Phil Stoffer, Anne Rosinski, and CGS staff | View minerals that glow in the dark ! | Earth Sciences: Minerals |
| Table-Top Earthquakes Phil Stoffer, Anne Rosinski, and CGS staff | Use sliding bricks to illustrate the stick-slip mechanism by which rock masses sliding past each other suddenly slip and trigger earthquakes. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes |
| Evolving Earth Phil Stoffer, Anne Rosinski, and CGS staff | Sandbox exhibit illustrates Earth-shaping processes, including artificial rainfall, streams, and landscape faulting and folding | Shaping Earth's Surface |
| Lean, Mean Landslide Machine Phil Stoffer, Anne Rosinski, and CGS staff | Help make a landslide and observe how sediments move down slope. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Landslides |
| Importance of Minerals Dennis Cox and John Galloway | Samples of minerals of iron, copper, lead, zinc, mercury, gold, etc., and corresponding articles from daily life that are made from these minerals | Physical Sciences: Metals and Earth Sciences: Minerals http://minerals.usgs.gov/granted.html http://www.usgs.gov/corecast/details.asp?ID=95 |
| Mineral Deposits in the San Francisco Bay Area Dan Mosier | Minerals display and geologic map showing locations of important mineral deposits in the San Francisco Bay area | Earth Sciences: Minerals |
| Coyote Point Museum: Fly, Flutter, and Float Karen Miel, Carl Oosterman, Joel Weber, Cat Brett [Coyote Point Museum] | What makes something fly, flutter, or float? Explore flight and wind with Coyote Point Museum: 1. Wind tube - students place a variety of foam objects in a vertical wind tube and observe their flight. 2. Paper helicopters - students build and test paper helicopters. 3. Live bird and biofacts (feathers and wings) - students can get close to a live animal and learn more about flight. | Life and Physical Sciences http://coyoteptmuseum.org |
| How Clean Is Clean? Brent Topping, Jim Kuwabara | Water-quality demonstration about specific conductivity | Resources http://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/solutetransport/ |
| Mid-Ocean Ridges Carol Reiss | Video, rocks, and posters of Juan de Fuca Ridge, a tectonic spreading center off the coasts of Oregon and Washington State | Shaping Earth's Surface: Plate Tectonics http://www.extremescience.com/CarolReiss.htm |
| Flying Over the Sea Floor Pete Dartnell and Jamie Conrad | Take a virtual "flight" over sea-floor bathymetry using computer graphics. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Plate Tectonics http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/pacmaps/ And fly-by movie available from http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2006/01/outreach.html" |
| Our Micro World Mary McGann | Use microscopes to view the shells of tiny marine organisms. Handle equipment used to collect the shells, and learn why they are important to scientists. | Life Sciences |
| Virtual Tour of the Hayward Fault Luke Blair | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/topics/?topicID=63 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1868/ |
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| How the Alaska Oil Pipeline Survived a Magnitude 7.9 Earthquake and Fault Rupture Gary Fuis, Janice Murphy, Michael Rymer | This display exhibits 2 pipelines, one rigid pipeline, which breaks when the ground ruptures and moves beneath it, and the flexible Alaska oil pipeline, which remains intact during the same ground movement. The design of the Alaska Oil pipeline could be adopted for other lifelines, including conduits for water, power, natural gas, and fiberoptic cable. We will demonstrate the principle of the Alaska Oil pipeline using students and pieces of flexible tape. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/geotech/denaliposter/pipeline.html |
| Human Seismic Waves Janice Murphy | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/topics/?topicID=63 |
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| How Close to a Fault Do You Live? Steve Walter | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes | |
| Make Your Own Earthquake Stan Silverman and Chris Dietel | coming soon | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes |
| Visualization of Ground Shaking from Computer Simulations of Earthquakes Brad Aagaard | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes | |
| Video theater - May 12, 2008 Sichuan (China) earthquake; Indian Ocean tsunami and the Peruvian Earthquake Walter Mooney, Shane Detweiler, Kurt Loeffler, Justine Gesell, and others | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes | |
| Tsunami Machine Walter Mooney, Shane Detweiler, Jillian McLaughlin, and others | Shaping Earth's Surface: Earthquakes | |
| Explore the Outdoors with the California Academy of Sciences Helena Carmena [California Academy of Sciences] | Hands-on activities for exploring the outdoors. | Life and Earth Sciences http://calacademy.org/ |
| Ecology of Coast Rica in pictures, movies, and sounds Rick Champion | Pictures, very short videos, and some sounds from a summer-school session in tropical ecology in the rain forest of Costa Rica (2007). Mostly pictures of birds, other critters,and plants on a computer monitor. | Life Sciences |
| Good Times Science Information and Library Services (Diane Garcia and Mitch Adelson) | An interactive timeline of natural-science events. For volcanoes, earthquakes, technology, and extinction. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Geologic Time http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod/ http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/geo_time_scale.html http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/ (more advanced) |
| Got Habitat? Keeping Our Waterways Clean Molly Ward (Slow the Flow Program Coordinator) and Lindy Nice (Watershed Watchers Interpretive Specialist) Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Education Center | Get a close-up view of the unique plants and animals that live at the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge! Follow the path of water through our watershed, storm drains, and sewers, and discover ways to keep San Francisco Bay habitats clean and healthy! | Life Sciences and Resources http://www.fws.gov/desfbay |
| Submarine Landslides Can Cause Destructive Tsunamis Eric Geist and Homa Lee | Slide a weight down a steep slope into a tub of water to create a tsunami that damages a coastal town at the other end of the tub. View posters of past landslide-generated tsunamis. | Shaping Earth's Surface: Tsunamis http://www.usgs.gov/faq/list_faq_by_category/get_answer.asp?id=970 |
| Heavy Metal Bugs: A Mining Story Dan Cain and Michelle Hornberger | Learn about the environmental consequences of mining activities and how aquatic insects accumulate metal contaminants in rivers and streams. View live bugs in an aquarium. | Life Sciences and Resources http://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/tracel/ |
