Explore our brand new inflatable globe, with fun facts, drill sites throughout the world, and many associated activities. See below for a list of the Deep Earth Academy activities that can be used with our globe - a useful tool for teaching many aspects of geography and geoscience for all ages. To request a globe, email us. They're free for educators and kids!

The following two activities were designed to use a beach ball or the drill site map.  We know of college courses that use a beach ball in the same manner as The Ocean is Big!
Where in the World?
The Ocean is Big!

This list indicates activities and the specific drill sites they reference. All of the drill sites are mapped and can be easily found using this Interactive Site Map.  Drill site locations and links to scientific reports and data are available for use with Google Earth.  Click here for instructions on how to download this information.

Site 1
The Glomar Challenge sets sail on its first expedition, Leg 1, of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) in 1968 in the Gulf of Mexico.
Learn more about the legacy of scientific ocean drilling.

Sites 14-21
The following activities present one set of data in four different ways. The first utilizes Google Earth for an exploration of seafloor spreading with fifth grade and older students.  "Nannofossils Reveal" is a pencil and paper version of the same material.  The third activity, "Plate Tectonics," was written specifically for high school and undergraduate audiences.  Finally, "Microfossils" places the data in the context of the beautiful microfossils from which it came.
An Expedition to the Seafloor - Using Google Earth and Ocean Cores to Analyze Seafloor Spreading

Nannofossils Reveal Seafloor Spreading Truth!

Plate Tectonics and Contributions from Scientific Ocean Drilling - Going Back to the Original Data

Microfossils: the ocean's storytellers

Sites 807, 887 and 1256 
Enter the world of a sedimentologist aboard the JOIDES Resolution as you learn how they describe and sample sediment cores in the Core Lab.
Core Description and Lithostratigraphy

Site 1256
The "Hole" Story About Ocean Cores will introduce your students to core description and curation techniques used by scientists and technicians during Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 309.
The "Hole" Story About Ocean Cores

In "Citizen Scientists and Decision Making - A Case Study" students can use the publicized results from IODP Expedition 312 to examine the relationship between science and the public media.
Citizen Scientists and Decision Making - A Case Study from IODP Expedition 312

Students explore average rates of sea floor spreading where the Pacific, Cocos and Nazca plates meet off the coast of Central America.
The Race is On . . .with Sea Floor Spreading! - Activity of the Month, October 2007

Site 957
This core, collected from a hydrothermal mound near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 1994, showed for the first time that hydrothermal ores are deposited both above and below older sediments.
HardCORE Writing - Leg 158 Pencil

Site 1049
The Blast from the Past activities allow students to discover Earth's history through hands-on activities about a large asteroid that collided with Earth sixty five million years ago at the present-day site of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. This impact created the Chicxulub crater. The "blast" affected the evolution of many species and was the cause of the extinction of 50-80% of Earth's creatures -- including dinosaurs!
Blast from the Past

Get a close-up look at one of the cores that led scientists to this discovery.  Learn about what they found in the different layers of sediment that were clues to this impact event.
HardCORE Writing - Leg 171 Pencil

In this activity, students access online data and generate graphs that illustrate distribution changes in marine microfossils preserved in ocean sediment cores.
Changes over Time - Microfossils in Blake's Nose: November 2007 Activity of the Month

Students investigate meteorite impact craters and analyze evidence for the K/T boundary impact in particular.
Impact Craters and the K/T Boundary

Site 1179
Sharing His Science: Dr. William Sager

Sites 1207-1214 
Imagine you are a scientist writing a proposal to use the JOIDES Resolution. Where would you drill? This activity guides students through the drill site location decision making process.
Why Did They Drill There?

Sites 1209-1212
Students calculate sediment rates at different sites on the ocean floor. They have the opportunity to explore a real-life application of rate calculation and what really counts as "fast" in geologic time.
Sedimentation Rates on Shatsky Rise

Site 1262 
Learn about climate change during the Cenozoic, and the abrupt changes at the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary (65.5 million years ago), the Eocene/Oligocene boundary (33.9 million years ago), and the Paleocene/Eocene boundary (55.8 million years ago).
Abrupt Events of the Past 70 Million Years - Evidence from Scientific Ocean Drilling

Students investigate the different kinds of sediments present at different locations on the ocean floor.
Climate and Sediment

Students explore the relationship between areas of upwelling and sediments deposited.
Insolation and Sediment

The following activities reference specific drill sites that are not indicated on the beachball itself, but can be found using this interactive drill site map.

Sites 793, 800, 1149
Subduction Zone Conditions - Activity of the Month, September 2007

Site 806
Mohawk Guy and his Band of Neogene Planktic Foraminifer Friends

Sites 609, 893A, 998, 999, 1000, 1001, 1002C, 1016, 1017
Inquiry into High-Resolution Ice Core and Marine Sediment Records: Archives of Suborbital (Millennial) Oscillations in Climate

The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), an international partnership of scientists and research institutions, has published two brochures highlighting the rich diversity of accomplishments made by this scientific community through studying ODP cores.
Ocean Drilling Program's Highlights (2004)

Ocean Drilling Program's Greatest Hits (1997)