Earth systems resources

Students use a diagram of a cutting showing exposed rock layers to answer questions about their formation, age, and geological history.

For this task students are asked to explain the cause of weathering of rocks and to identify the hardest and the softest rock in a column of rock.

Students are provided with a diagram and asked to identify the type of geological process that it represents. Students are also required to explain what happened.

Task: Describe problems caused by cutting down trees on a bank. Assessment focus: erosion.

Students answer three multiple-choice questions about fossils and how they are formed.

Students follow a story about searching for gold on an island. In the process they answer five questions about landforms.

This resource requires students to process information on an earthquake. This entails calculating the distance that the recording stations are from an earthquake's epicentre, locating the epicentre, calculating the magnitude, and answering general questions on earthquakes.

Students explain a plastic recycling symbol. This resource assesses an aspect of knowledge helpful for making decisions about recycling.

Students view four sequential diagrams on fossilisation, and then write explanations about this process using the diagrams and their own knowledge.

Students use a diagram that shows a proposed site for a town that has a river running through it. Students identify where it would be best to collect drinking water, and how town planners could stop the town from flooding.

For this task students select two kinds of activity from those labelled on a diagram of an erupting volcano. Students write a description and the problems or dangers associated with each activity.

This practical task assesses students' ability to design and carry out a fair test on the relationship between slope and rates of erosion.

Students view an online animation which illustrates stages of a volcanic eruption, write their observations and answer question about eruptions. Assessment focus: observations based on a model, and knowledge of volcanic eruptions.

Students are provided with a diagram showing rock layers. Students use this diagram to answer a number of questions.

Students are provided with a map that has numbers on it representing various ash fall depths from a volcanic eruption. Students draw lines to link the similar numbers and answer questions about these. They also explain three major problems an ash fall could cause.

Students are provided with a newspaper article titled 'Gentle quake the latest in swarm' and use this to answer three questions.

This resource assesses students' understanding of erosion. Students order a set of diagrams showing the process of erosion in a river and write an explanation of how cliff erosion occurs by the sea.

Students are provided with two photographs of an area, one before a tree planting programme and one five years later. Students are asked to write an article on how tree-planting helps the environment.

For this task students are provided with a diagram showing the landmasses that originally made up Gondwanaland. Students are required to identify and use their own knowledge to indicate the evidence which indicates that these landmasses were once joined together.

Task: Students answer questions about a soil food web. Assessment focus: reading a food web, systems thinking.

Students are asked to identify two impending signs of a volcanic eruption and to describe four geological events that are linked to volcanic eruptions.

Using data from three different locations, students calculate the time difference between the arrival of P and S waves and the distance of each location from an earthquake's epicentre. Students use these distances to locate the epicentre on a map of NZ.

This resource requires students to process information on an earthquake. This entails calculating the distance that the recording stations are from an earthquake's epicentre, locating the epicentre, calculating the magnitude, and answering general questions on earthquakes.

Students are given a diagram of a glacier, and asked to identify natural hazards and the possible effect of increased temperature on the position of the glacier snout.

Students explain their understandings of the benefits of having trees in the school playground.