Free Resources for Earth Science Teachers
- olivershearman
- Oct 11
- 5 min read
So, you are an Earth Science Teacher and hoping to get yourself some useful and free resources to help your class or bring a little inspiration back to the classroom? Well you have come to the right place! My name is Oliver and I am The Teaching Astrophysicist. In order to support your, I do sell resources, but I also provide many free resources to support your best practice and share ways that I enjoy teaching.
Before I launch in the free resources below, I would like to take a moment to mention my Earth Cycles Complete Unit which covers the Carbon, Nitrogen and Water Cycles in detail and through an excellent array of resources.
Now for the free resources below!
Studying the three main kinds of rocks - igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic - helps middle and high school students connect Earth’s processes to real evidence, from volcanoes and fossils to mountain building and resource use, making it a natural fit for NGSS MS-ESS2 and HS-ESS2. A focused reading passage with questions gives every learner a clearer path to mastery by preparing them to learn about how each rock type forms, what textures and minerals to look for, and how the rock cycle moves matter and energy through Earth’s crust. The passage includes an engaging visual with scaffolded questions that move from recall to classification to interpreting evidence. This format streamlines planning, strengthens science literacy and observation skills, and helps students apply concepts during lab stations, field notes, or photo identification, turning rock names into powerful clues about our planet’s history.
Studying tectonic plates is crucial as it explains the forces shaping Earth’s surface, including earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain formation. Understanding tectonic plate movements helps predict natural disasters, manage resources, and grasp Earth’s history, aiding in geological hazard assessment and guiding construction practices. With this in mind, let's engage with this tectonic plates teaching resource.
This tectonic plates article provides the perfect grab and go, print and provide resource that can help your students learn all about tectonic plates. For digital, you can provide a Google doc copy for ease of submission or a Microsoft word version as well. In this tectonic plates article with questions to check comprehension and inspire scientific thinking.
Studying tectonic plates is crucial as it explains the forces shaping Earth’s surface, including earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain formation. Understanding plate movements helps predict natural disasters, manage resources, and grasp Earth’s history, aiding in geological hazard assessment and guiding construction practices. With this in mind, let's engage with this teaching resource.
This research project template provides the perfect grab and go, print and provide resource that can supplement lessons. It is an project template with questions to check comprehension and inspire scientific thinking. It gives a rich and supportive framework that can be tweaked as needed for students to support differentiation.
Studying tectonic plates through a critical thinking framework helps middle and high school students connect earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, and seafloor spreading to clear cause and effect reasoning they can apply across Earth science. A structured, four level scaffold guides learners from core ideas like plate boundaries and convection currents to deeper analysis of real maps, GPS motion data, and case studies that compare transform, convergent, and divergent zones. The framework’s steps turn vocabulary into evidence based inquiry with prompts for predicting hazards, evaluating building codes, and explaining patterns in the Ring of Fire. It fits a wide range of classroom routines, from guided inquiry projects and station rotations to group discussions, reflection journals, peer teaching, and rubric based assessment. Included exemplars, 9 step, 6 step, and 3 step versions in PDF, Google Docs, Google Slides, and Word make planning fast while supporting differentiation for grades 6 to 12. The result is a ready to use resource that builds analytical reasoning and science literacy while helping students read tectonic maps, interpret data, and explain how moving plates shape our planet.
Animals and organisms of various kinds can have a massive impact on our planet and their environment, so much so, that they can terraform the landscape around them. Animal terraforming is an incredible mechanism for changing the landscape over time and in many various ways. This article celebrates animal terraforming examples such as algae, beavers, migratory birds and many others that change the world around them.
This animal terraforming article provides the perfect grab and go, print and provide resource that can help your students learn all about animal terraforming. For digital, you can provide a Google doc copy for ease of submission or a Microsoft word version as well. In this animal terraforming article with questions to check comprehension and inspire scientific thinking.
Studying animal terraforming - how animals shape and transform landscapes - is a fascinating and valuable topic for middle and high school students because it connects biology, ecology, and environmental science in a real-world context. From beavers building dams that create wetlands to earthworms enriching soil and elephants shaping entire ecosystems by knocking down trees, animals play a crucial role in shaping their environments. Understanding animal terraforming processes helps students see nature as an interconnected system and encourages critical thinking about conservation, climate change, and how human activities influence ecosystems. Plus, animal terraforming inspires curiosity about the natural world and potential careers in science, sustainability, and wildlife management. With his in mind, let's engage with this fantastic learning resource!
Glaciers give students a vivid way to connect Earth science to real data by showing how ice forms, flows, and reshapes landscapes while storing most of the planet’s fresh water and recording past climates in ice cores. A focused reading passage with questions helps learners prepare to learn about core ideas like accumulation and ablation, albedo, moraines and U shaped valleys, sea level change, and freshwater resources, this will help them get ready to apply their knowledge to maps, photos, and simple graphs. The passage includes an engaging image with scaffolded questions that move from recall to cause and effect to interpreting evidence. This format aligns naturally with NGSS MS ESS2 and HS ESS2, strengthens science literacy and numeracy, and turns current headlines about melting ice into age appropriate, evidence based learning students can use in class discussions and simple investigations.
I hope that you find these to be helpful and you might consider purchasing some of the none free, but still incredibly high quality items available from my store - The Teaching Astrophysicist Shop.
Thanks for Reading
Cheers and Stay Curious
Oliver - The Teaching Astrophysicist
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