--- title: Introduction to Earth Sciences description: This introductory study examines the physical processes shaping the Earth's land, oceans, and atmosphere. Learners will understand the fundamental principles of geology, meteorology, and oceanography, and how these systems interact globally. category: sciences subcategory: earth-and-environmental-science difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/introduction-to-earth-sciences --- # Introduction to Earth Sciences This introductory study examines the physical processes shaping the Earth's land, oceans, and atmosphere. Learners will understand the fundamental principles of geology, meteorology, and oceanography, and how these systems interact globally. ## Available Resources 2 Courses • 3 Websites ## Websites ### 1. Understanding Global Change Free educational site from the UC Museum of Paleontology explaining the Earth system: how the atmosphere, oceans, ice, rock, and living things interact, and how those interactions drive climate change. Includes diagrams and teaching modules for building systems-thinking skills. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ugc.berkeley.edu/ **Tags:** earth-system, climate-change, systems-thinking, geoscience-education ### 2. NASA Earth Observatory NASA site publishing satellite imagery with explanatory articles on weather, wildfires, ice, oceans, land cover, and atmospheric change. Readers learn to interpret remote-sensing images and connect visible events to underlying Earth system processes. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ **Tags:** remote-sensing, satellite-imagery, earth-systems, climate ### 3. USGS Earth Science Resources U.S. Geological Survey hub of free educational materials, including maps, lesson plans, videos, and data activities on earthquakes, volcanoes, water, minerals, and landscapes. Useful for grounding introductory Earth science concepts in real government monitoring data. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.usgs.gov/educational-resources **Tags:** geology, natural-hazards, hydrology, maps, geoscience-education ## Courses ### 1. Planet Earth...and You! Earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, ice ages, landslides, floods, life evolution, plate motions—all of these phenomena have interacted over the vast expanses of deep time to sculpt the dynamic planet that we live on today. Planet Earth presents an overview of several aspects of our home, from a geological perspective. We begin with earthquakes—what they are, what causes them, what effects they have, and what we can do about them. We will emphasize that plate tectonics—the grand unifying theory of geology—explains how the map of our planet's surface has changed radically over geologic time, and why present-day geologic activity—including a variety of devastating natural disasters such as earthquakes—occur where they do. We consider volcanoes, types of eruptions, and typical rocks found there. Finally, we will delve into the processes that produce the energy and mineral resources that modern society depends on, to help understand the context of the environment and sustainability challenges that we will face in the future. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/planet-earth **Tags:** geology, plate-tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, earth-science ### 2. The Environment of the Earth's Surface (MIT 12.090) **Author:** John Southard Surface processes drawing on geology, climatology, hydrology and soil science: production and movement of surficial materials, soils and erosion, precipitation, streams and lakes, groundwater flow, and glaciers. The page provides the full open textbook and exams, grounding practical management of the physical environment. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/12-090-the-environment-of-the-earths-surface-spring-2007/ **Tags:** geomorphology, earth-surface-processes, soil-erosion, hydrology, groundwater, glaciers ## Podcasts ### 1. Don't Panic Geocast **Author:** John Leeman and Shannon Dulin John Leeman and Shannon Dulin discuss geoscience and technology weekly for your enjoyment! Features include guests, fun paper Friday selections, product reviews, and banter about recent developments. Shannon is a field geologist who tolerates technology and John is a self-proclaimed nerd that tolerates geologists. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.dontpanicgeocast.com **Tags:** geoscience, geology, research-papers, scientific-tools --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/introduction-to-earth-sciences