Use a narrative "science tour" app for the drive up Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona. Travel from desert to pine forest, listening to the audio guide and watching slideshows and videos. Learn how our world is sustained by natural environments, systems, and cycles.

Educational Objectives

Describe the natural history of Mt. Lemmon with special attention to geology and biology. The tour follows the Catalina Highway to the top of Mt. Lemmon.

See an annotated list of technical tools for creating Virtual Fieldwork Experiences about a site. Tools include smartphone apps for capturing imagery and other data as well as accessing information (ie geologic maps). Desktop and web-based software is also included, as is some hardware.

Educational Objectives

Users will both create and access media to explain why a site looks the way it does.

This kmz file contains basic data on every large tree within the Shale Hills catchment, including species and Diameter at Breast Height (DBH). Explore the data and look for patterns of species distributions by clicking on and off different species. This file is included within the Shale Hills VFE.

Educational Objectives

The listed objectives are suggestive. Teachers may design activities using the dataset with their own objectives.

• Describe how distribution of trees varies by species.
• Speculate what factors determine species' affinity for particular placement within the Shale Hills catchment.
• Design investigations to test hypotheses about species distribution.

The survey can also serve as a model for surveying trees (or other elements) in your local environment.

This webpage serves as an introduction to both CZ science and the use of Virtual Fieldwork Experiences (VFEs) for exploration of the CZ. Embedded within this page you will find VFEs of Shale Hills Susquehanna, Southern Sierra CZO and Luquillo CZOs.

Educational Objectives

• Interpret the environment represented within the VFE you are investigating, including descriptions of why the landscape looks the way it does, and how it has changed over time.
• Create a VFE representing your local environment or a field site you have visited and present it to interested others.

Objectives for specific VFEs are included within those VFEs.

View ten maps of the contiguous 48 states, each highlighting different geographic features. Viewing the maps collectively reveals connections among different Earth systems.

Educational Objectives

• Describe similarities in the geographic distribution of different characteristics of the landscape.
• Speculate on relationships among these different characteristics.

Watch fascinating, public lectures from four Catalina-Jemez CZO researchers. The 30-minute lectures are part of the Critical Zone Science Cafe Series from Fall 2015, in Tucson, AZ.

Educational Objectives

Viewers will be able to describe:

• The concept of the CZ
• The role of microbes in the CZ
• The role of soil in the CZ
• The role of water in the CZ

Learn about educational initiatives and resources for teaching CZ Science. This issue includes seven articles that describe approaches to teaching CZ Science, why teaching CZ Science is important, and how such approaches can satisfy NGSS expectations. Full access requires NAGT membership.

Educational Objectives

Describe a range of approaches to, and resources for, teaching CZ Science.

As this is a collection of seven articles, the educational objectives are too numerous to list here. They are listed in the individual entries for each article.

Take a virtual tour of the Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory! Track snowfall and predict soil thickness. Learn about soil carbon and how climate change and sagebrush ecosystems are modeled.

Educational Objectives

Objectives being written.

Tracking Snow:  Measuring Nature’s Water Reservoir.  

Organic Carbon:  The Key Variable in a Changing Climate.  

Inorganic Carbon:  A Different Type of Carbon.  

Predicting Soil Thickness:  Anywhere on a Landscape.  

CORE Sites:  The Most Advanced Ecosystem Measurements Anywhere.  

In the U.S., we burn over a gallon of gasoline per person, per day. What becomes of all that? What does it have to do with the Critical Zone? This blog post investigates these questions with powerful but simple visuals that can be easily translated to classroom use.

Educational Objectives

1. Explain why burning a six pound gallon of gasoline produces 19 pounds of carbon dioxide.
2. Communicate the scale of carbon dioxide emissions by describing the carbon cycle through the story of gasoline.

Explore a range of Virtual Fieldwork Experiences, and resources for their production and use. This site includes examples of highlighted VFEs, selected resources and strategies for using VFEs in teaching and learning, and a large collection of VFEs.

Educational Objectives

This page introduces a range of resources with a wide range of objectives. Selected objectives include:

• Teachers and learners will visit virtual field sites and be able to characterize aspects of the geology and biology of those sites, and aspects of how the biosphere, geosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere interact at these sites.
• Employ technological tools to capture aspects of environments in ways that those aspects may be shared with others.

This blog post covers the topic of leaching, the process in which water carries soluble substances or small particles through soil or rock.

Educational Objectives

Readers will be able to describe the process of leaching, its function, and the effect it has on the structure of the Critical Zone.

A seven-minute video that explores the Critical Zone, what it is, why it's important, and how the NSF CZO program is studying it. The video emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of work in the critical zone.

Educational Objectives

• Explain what the Critical Zone and Critical Zone Science are.
• Describe some ways humans are changing the Critical Zone and why these changes are important to understand.

A short web page that answers questions like: what is the Critical Zone? Why it is so important? Why does it need to be studied? The page includes text, images, and video.

Educational Objectives

Be able to discuss where the Critical Zone fits on Earth's surface and its importance to Humans and all life. 

Watch three sets of videos about the Boulder Creek CZO, spanning from the Continental Divide (4120 m) down to the western edge of the Plains (1480 m). CZO researchers describe their fieldwork and data collection, supporting CZO science in the Rocky Mountains.

Educational Objectives

This video series includes several videos addressing a range of objectives. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Briefly describe the Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory.
• Describe aspects of instrumentation and how data is collected at the Boulder Creek CZO.

Note that the page has three embedded videos but includes a link to the Boulder Creek's YouTube page with many more.

In this blog post, learn how stable isotopes are used to determine a tree's water source.

Educational Objectives

Readers will be able to describe the possible sources of water for trees and the method used to determine a tree's water source. 

An illustrated introduction to the Eel River Critical Zone Observatory in the Angelo Coast Range Reserve.

Educational Objectives

After reading this cartoon, students will be able to:

• Identify the Eel River Watershed on a map of California
• Understand why the Critical Zone is of interest to scientists
• Explain the role the Critical Zone plays in supporting healthy trees and river ecosystems