http://www.earthsunmoon.co.uk/

earthsunmoon.co.uk. When you go to this site, you are invited to play a game, where you have to explore the sun, earth and moon to explain to an animated alien from an obscure planet. You first have to get through an asteroid belt by moving your spaceship, then you choose, the sun, moon or earth, and the program goes through some animation, but teaches interesting facts about each. After you have learned about all three, you move your spaceship to the obscure planet, but you have to go through another asteroid belt and this time using your mouse, shoot down asteroids. After you have made it through the asteroid belt, and land on the planet, you are given a small quiz on the planets. There are many more interesting and interactive sites on the internet to learn about the earth, sun, and moon.

What is weather? The basic answer to this question is that weather is the state of the atmosphere to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Weather generally refers to the day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity. Common weather phenomena include wind, clouds, rain, snow, fog, and dust storms. Less common events include natural disasters, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons and ice storms. As mentioned above, there are several websites that teach about the weather and one of the most interesting is www.

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/

weatherwizkids.com. This is a site designed by meteorologist Crystal Wicker especially for kids to allow them to learn more about weather. This site is broken down into sections about different facets of weather. For example, on the site about lightning, it tells about what causes lighting, and has a world map that you can click on to see where lightning is happening at the current time. It also tells...

This would be a fascinating site for all ages of students learning about the weather.
Climate is, according to Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, "the condition of the atmosphere at a particular location over a long period of time, generally 30 years. Climate is the sum of atmospheric elements and their variations, such as solar radiation, temperature, humidity, clouds and precipitation, atmospheric pressure, and wind speed and direction." There are many factors that affect climate, including distance from the sea, ocean currents, direction of prevailing winds, mountains, proximity to the equator, El Nino or the Jet Stream and finally humans. From the first time humans appeared on the earth, we have affected climate. Trees take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and put out oxygen, but when we cut trees down, that affects the amount of carbon in the air. Then once we invented motors and engines in the industrial revolution, we caused pollution or smog and that affects the climate of an area. One of the better websites that explains climate and then explains how people have affected climate is: http://www.ecn.ac.uk/Education/factors_affecting_climate.htm. You can go to this site and click on a tutorial entitled 'Climate Change' and see how we have affected climate and it even gives you sections to see what will happen with different things. Very interesting.

Visualizing Deep Time

Part II

Return to Deep Time Essay

References

Palmer, A.R., & Zen, E. The Context of Humanity: Understanding Deep Time. BASIN. Retrieved from http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/local/sustain2.html on July 22, 2011.