Earth Science

Online Resources

National Geographic Education Resources HELPFUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING, has a tonne of stuff I'm enjoying learning myself.
TierZoo A Youtube channel analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of animals from a gamer's perspective
Minute Earth It's boring. Oh, it's so boring! And I don't know if it's properly researched. Take it with a grain of salt.
Hood Nature Really entertaining channel about wildlife
Zoboomafoo - you could say TierZoo may even be its spiritual successor. The OG kids TV show about animals.
ThoughtCo Habitat Profiles
ThoughtCo Weather and Climate Info
ThoughtCo Geology Info
ThoughtCo Ecology Info
ThoughtCo Animals and Nature Info
National Geographic Youtube channel
Nature on PBS

Books

HELPFUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING: added 5/21/24 Rock Collecting For Kids by Dan R. Lynch - provides not just an introduction to geology but hands-on activities that really are fun
HELPFUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING: added 2/16/23 Nature in a Nutshell for Kids by Jean Potter - not just for kids. These science demonstrations are so interesting and fun that anyone of any age could potentially have a good time.
HELPFUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING: Barron's AP Environmental Science
HELPFUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING: Geology, A Complete Introduction by David A. Rothery
HELPFUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING: Nature Smart by Gwen Diehn, Terry Krautwurst, Alan Anderson, Joe Rhatigan & Heather Smith - instead of any kind of boring text, you get a bunch of hands-on DIY projects as well as interesting explanations about the environment. It's great. This thing actually has a lot of info I didn't know and I've been studying tree-hugging Earth type stuff for like fifteen years now
HELPFUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING: Trowel and Error by Sharon Lovejoy - because all of the information about how to create habitats for pollinators is useful and educational
HELFPUL FOR HOMESCHOOLING: How To Make An Eco Garden by John Walker - same deal
New 6/18/22: Around The World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori and Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori - the trees one at least has a bit of a colonialist attitude problem, but these are extremely informative nonetheless
New 4/18/22: Barron's Painless Earth Science - I skimmed it. Looks good. Don't know if it actually is.
Peterson Field Guides are excellent for learning to understand what kind of stuff is growing and living in your local neighborhood. They're usually at libraries. Take one on a walk with you to see if you can identify what's there.
Audubon Society Field Guides are also good.
For the sake of entertainment (mostly), National Geographic, Dorling Kindersley, and Eyewitness Books have come out with decent introductions to various fields of Earth Science. These tend to be easy to find at your local library.

Ways Learning Earth Science Can Help You, section added 10/9/24:

Find out the truth for yourself as to whether climate change is real or not. Ignore talking heads and run your own experiments. Why not. Problem: you will have to know Science as well as how to set up and run a proper set of experiments, plus critical thinking (see: Detecting B.S..) If you can do all that then go for it, but if your idea of an experiment is to say "It's cold here, there's no such thing as climate change," well... (gestures broadly at the hurricanes in Florida, October 2024, such as footage like this on Reddit and other info from r/weather)
Figure out how to mine for resources or otherwise take resources from the Earth without causing any harm to said Earth. I think there's a possibility this hasn't really been done much before except for with Indigenous people.
This has a definite impact on how successful you will be if you ever get into rockhounding
Any sort of environmental remediation requires you learn this

Big Brain Time

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