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A place for you to find resources and opportunities to help you teach awesome Earth Science. Join our eNews list to be sent classroom activities, ideas and information about Earth Science opportunities. Don’t miss out on a thing!
Field Adventures
Want to join us discover the amazing world of Earth Science in the field? Live on an active volcano or visit the oldest continent on the planet? Amazing field trips for teachers and homeschoolers.
Earth Science Snippets
We will add new fascinating snippets of Earth Science that you can use in your classroom throughout the year.
Volcanoes of Italy 2026 – Photos
See just a few photos from the trip in June 2026 What an amazing experience! ...
Discover Australia for Families- November 2027
Discover Australia for Families - 2027 A trip special trip for homeschool families to discover the history, Earth science and ...
Volcanic Tremor
Earthquakes happen almost everywhere - the sudden breaking of rocks to release tension built up in the crust and the ...
Earth’s Rock Cycle Poster (Free)
Print your own Geoscience - downloadable PDF file."Earth's Rock Cycle"It is US Letter in size - but can be scaled ...
Discover Hawaii’s Active Volcanoes – Homeschool Families 16-21 January 2026 (Trip II)
Discover Hawaii's Active Volcanoes for Homeschool Families: 16-21 January 2026 If you are interested, please get on the trip INTEREST ...
Three reasons human civilization grew around volcanoes
Humans have lived and thrived around volcanoes for millennia. Often they understood the dangers as most eruptions are small and ...
Graveyards as data sites
An excursion to a graveyard may seem a crazy thing to want to do with your students! But the ...
Iceland for Educators 2023 – Photos
An amazing trip with wonderful people- and here are just a few of the highlights in photos. Want to join ...
Galapagos 2023 – Photos
See just a few photos from the trip in 2023. What an amazing experience! ...
Volcano Resources
If you are teaching your students about volcanoes, here are some great resources you can use in your classroom or ...
Field gear for Geologists & Rockhounds
So field season is just around the corner - and it's time to make sure you have all the gear ...
Radioactive dating and activity
Have your students listen to this podcast on radioactive dating. It goes just under 8 minutes. Then have them do ...
Which way is up?
As the rocks on our planet are continually being moved around by Plate Tectonics, it is rare to find layers ...
GEOetc Plate Tectonics Resources
Here are all the free resources to help you learn and teach about Plate Tectonics. If you are a GEOetc ...
Benioff Zones – earthquake evidence for subduction
When we look at the earthquake evidence for Plate Tectonics, one amazing feature is the Benioff Zoned earthquakes that show ...
Are our school students really scientists?
I think it is wonderful that we are having students ask meaningful questions and undertaking studies to try and answer ...
TESTeacher Earthquakes – Free version
Welcome to The Earth Science Teacher. This is the quarterly member's journal of GEOetc.com. Each quarter a new topic is ...
Lava won’t kill you but these six things could!
Often the misconception people have is that lava is the most deadly thing about an erupting volcano! But this is ...
Plate Tectonic Cycles
Plate Tectonic cycles have been happening on Earth as we know it today - with all its features - for ...
Mineral and Rock Collection cards
I use mineral and rock collection cards with all my samples - even ones that are still sitting in plastic ...
Milankovitch cycles – the Earth in space and climate.
In the 1920's a Serbian geophysicist and astronomer called Milutin Milankovitch suggested that long term variations in how the Earth ...
Earth Science over a Virtual Coffee
We are currently dealing with changes in the way we communicate with each and our students due to the COVID-19 ...
Columnar jointing
One of the most dramatic geological features found around our planet is columnar jointing formed from the cooling of molten ...
What is the Lithosphere?
Traditionally, when we talk about the layers of our planet we talk about the inner core, outer core, mantle, and ...
Mineral Identification – a guide.
When you just start off exploring the wonders of minerals, working out mineral identification can seem a daunting task. It ...
Gifts for Geologists & Rockhounds
So you need to buy a for the geologist in your life? Are you struggling to find something that will ...
So you want to run a field trip? 20 tips and tricks!
So you want to run a field trip? I have been leading field trips for over 30 years, and have ...
Iceland 2019 Photos
Just some of the photos from our 2019 Iceland trips. Come join us in Iceland 2022 More details here ...
Climate change and understanding science
I have spent a lot of time measuring the weathering rates of marble gravestones. During my studies, I have discovered ...
Why I don’t start Earth science by teaching rock and mineral identification
Many educators who are not Earth science trained, and many who are, flounder when trying to work out the best ...
Scale – fields of view in geoscience
We view our planet using different scales. Most people use just the local scale - they see what is immediately around ...
Understanding Polar Reversals
Understanding polar reversals helps us to understand an important piece of evidence for Plate Tectonics. When molten rock cools, some ...
Divergent Plate Boundaries
One of the most amazing places on the Earth's is where two massive tectonic plates are moving apart. Almost 99% ...
Volcanoes as a STEM teaching tool
Trying to teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in the classroom can often seem disjointed. Having a STEM teaching ...
Geologist Field Gear – the six “H” essentials!
What are the essential pieces of field gear for a geologist - or in fact any geology enthusiast? What ...
Olivine – one of simplest rock-forming minerals
Olivine is one of the simplest silicate minerals that can be found in igneous rocks on our planet. All the ...
Conference Posters – tips to make an impact
So you have been successful in having your topic selected as one of the conference posters. Good job! Presenting a ...
Silicates – a simple guide to the Earth’s rock forming minerals
While high school students are taught about chemistry using simple examples of inorganic and organic substances, very few are exposed ...
Geoscientists need to talk to the public
Too often scientists ignore talking to the public. They would rather spend all their “communication” time and energy talking about ...
Geological hammer – a beginners guide to buying your “forever hammer”
A geological hammer is often seen as an essential part of any field geologists equipment. Often called rock picks ...
Cinder Cones – a unique volcanic feature.
Cinder cones are volcanic features that are found at volcanic sites where there has been some form of fountaining activity. Fire Fountains ...
Evidence for Plate Tectonics
The evidence for Plate Tectonics is very conclusive. It is a very well supported theory, and while scientific debate continues ...
Boundaries – how the plates interact
The Earth's plates don't just sit there. They move and interact at their boundaries - and that is what makes ...
Plates – understanding the tectonic jigsaw pieces.
The Earth's rocky outerlayer (the lithosphere) is broken up into around seventeen major pieces that we call tectonic plates. ...
The Earth’s Crust – a simple way to view it.
The Earth's crust - that outermost rocky layer of our planet - can be daunting to understand. To start ...
Field Boots – an essential piece of equipment.
If you are a geoscientist you are going to need field boots. Even if you are being a "geoscientist" just ...
Field Notes – what students need to learn to do.
Taking solid field notes is a skill that many students are not taught. The days of a geologist's life recorded ...
There’s mica in my toaster!
Mica has been used for many purposes over time and even in my short lifetime I have seen it in ...
Space Geeks Timeline
Understanding time is something that geoscientists are just great at doing. But we get a little sick of people not understanding ...
Lava flows – can you outrun a lava flow?
Most people believe that one of the major hazards of volcanoes are lava flows. They are surprised to find ...
Diamonds are NOT a girl’s best friend
Diamonds are NOT a girl's best friend - or so I tell my wife. And here is why. All minerals ...
Mapping lava flows – using color to work out relative ages
Mapping lava flows using satellite images is a wonderful activity that you can do in your classroom. In some ...
Field trips – they are critical for teachers!
Field trips are critical. Learning Earth science in the field is as important as learning to cook in a kitchen ...
Spot the cleavage – a characteristic often misunderstood.
Cleavage is an important diagnostic feature of minerals. However it is often misunderstood. And more often mistaken for another mineral ...
How to experience an Earthquake
Often we have to teach about phenomenon, like an earthquake, that our students have never experienced. We can read eyewitness ...
I love a dike – my geology hook.
One of the reasons I fell in love with geology was finding evidence of igneous activity in the form of ...
Not all that glitters is gold!
Gold - the metal on which many empires have grown (and withered) is a strange metal indeed. In nature it ...
EarthCache – Let the Earth be your teacher!
An EarthCache is a special place that you can visit using GPS technology to learn more about the geology of ...
How hard is mineral hardness?
How hard is a mineral? Geoscientists still use mineral hardness as a way to identify an unknown mineral. This ...
Using a Circular Data Calendar
We are all looking at ways to collect and display data with our students. Most of the time the data ...
The strange thing about Basalt.
Basalt. It's the fine grained igneous rock that makes up the sea floor and sometimes spews forth from volcanoes on ...
How long is deep time?
Deep Time is the term used by scientists to describe the vast amount of time that has passed since the ...
What happened in the Permian?
The Permian period of time started around 299 million years ago when the Earth was in the deep freeze of ...
Welcome to GEOetc
G'day, Howdy and Hi, My name is Gary Lewis and I am an enthusiastic and passionate geoscientist. I grew up ...
Services
How can we help your organization communicate your science, develop educational resources or manage projects. GEOetc offers a wide range of services and courses to place you at the cutting edge.
Store
Need a special item to show how much you LOVE Earth Science? T shirts, hoodies, mugs and more can be found in our store.
Circular Data Calendars
Want to have students plot data in a unique way? Why not try these neat Circular Data Calendars. You can get them for Northern and Southern Hemisphere and they are reusable pdfs.
Hello to Everyone I have a Movie ready for you to show your classes 1 hour and 15 min. Send Email to my Face Book with the helicopter and I will Dropbox you the movie
Thanks Nancy! 🙂 (Nancy was a participant in a trip I led to Hawaii last year)
This wonderful endorsement by Ian Clark – a middle school science teacher from CT who attended the Hawaii trip in 2015: Taking learning out of the classroom and into the “real” world is what all science teachers strive for, and Gary Lewis is an expert. Having worked with Gary to plan a trip for middle-schoolers, and having participated myself on one of his trips for teachers, it’s clear that he not only knows his stuff inside-out, but he understands his audience, too. Gary does a wonderful job tailoring incredible experiences for multiple levels of learners. His materials are top-notch and his excitement at sharing his experience with students is beyond compare.