Coastal Regions
Mountain Regions
The Changing Face of Earth
Mapping
Climate and Weather
100
Where am I?
I am famous for my wide, sandy beaches and a warm, mild climate.
I am home to at least 24 million people, and my beaches host 130,000,000 people a year.
Where is the Southern Coast?
100
These three factors can affect a region's climate.
What are distance from the equator, altitide, and distance from the ocean.
100
We walk, play, skateboard, and garden on this layer of the Earth.
What is Earth's crust?
100
California has two natural harbors.
One is located at 38 degrees N, 122 degrees W.
One is located at 33 degrees N, 117 degrees W.
What are San Francisco and San Diego?
100
Name three processes that are part of the water cycle.
What are Evaporation, Transpiration, Condensation, Precipitation, Surface Run Off, Collection, Infiltration, or Percolation?
200
Where am I?
Lush forests with redwoods, ferns, and babbling brooks are home to abundant wildlife. Deer, elk, mountain lions and bears share their habitat with bobcats, weasels, foxes, skunks, squirrels and more. The terrain is mountainous and rugged. The climate is mostly cool, foggy and moist with almost to fifty inches of rain a year.
Where is the Northern Coast?
200
California has 100 mountains over 13,000 feet. But at over 14,500 feet, this one is the tallest mountain in the United States.
What is Mount Whitney?
200
This solid metal ball has a radius of 1,220 kilometers or about three-quarters that of the moon. Extremely dense, it’s made mostly of iron and nickel, and spins a bit faster than the rest of the planet.
What is the core?
200
The Equator divides the Earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
This measurement tells you how far north or south you are from the equator.
This measurement ranges from 0 degrees at the Equator to 90 degrees at the poles.
What is latitude?
200
This is a description of the long-term pattern of weather conditions at a location. The expression “long-term” usually means 30 years or more.
What is climate?
300
Known as the Cinderellas of the coastal regions, this is the place where sea water meets freshwater. An ecological wonderland, they are home to a diversity of plants and animals, including many migratory birds.
What are wetlands?
300
Home to mountain ranges from rolling foothills to massive jagged peaks, California's mountain region was born of fire and ice. Name two of the natural forces that formed the spectacular mountain regions.
What are plate tectonics, volcanoes and glaciers?
300
This is a transform fault that runs roughly 1,200 kilometers through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.
What is the San Andreas Fault?
300
The Prime Meridian (0 degrees) passes through Greenwich, England and divides the Earth in to the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere.
The International Dateline (180 degrees)
This measurement is read as East or West.
What is longitude?
300
Conditions in the atmosphere at a localized place and a particular time. It is usually described in terms of particular features, such as air pressure, humidity, moisture, any precipitation (rain, snow or ice), temperature and wind speed.
What is weather?
400
These 8 islands are located off the coast of Southern California.
The largest island has its own school. The teachers take a ferry boat to get to work.
What are the Chanel Islands?
400
California is a land of extremes and its mountain regions are home to the tallest tree in the world, the biggest tree in the world, and the oldest tree in the world.
Name the tallest tree and its height.
Name the biggest tree.
Name the oldest tree and its age.
What are:
Coast redwood, 379.1 feet tall
Ancient Bristlecone Pine in the White Mountains, 4,800 years old
General Sherman, a Giant Sequoia, biggest tree in the world
400
This is the process where rock is dissolved, worn away or broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. There are mechanical, chemical and organic processes.
What is weathering?
400
You might use this kind of map when you go backpacking, hiking, camping, and bike riding.
What is a contour map?
400
Mountains and other topographic features can have tremendous influence on precipitation. Where mountain ranges run parallel to the coast and perpendicular to the prevailing winds coming off the Pacific Ocean creates this effect - a patch of land that has been forced to become a desert because mountain ranges blocked all plant-growing, rainy weather. On one side of the mountain, wet weather systems drop rain and snow. On the other side of the mountain the precipitation is blocked.
What is a Rain Shadow Effect?
500
These islands are small rocky islands off the coast of San Francisco.
What are the Farallon Islands?
500
This might help a group of lost trekkers figure out where they are on a mountain and how far they are from the top.
What is examine the vegetation and wildlife around you? Certain plants and animals thrive at five specific elevations or zones.
500
Once the rock has been weakened and broken up by weathering the rocks and sediments are picked up and moved to another place by ice, water, wind or gravity in this process.
What is erosion?
500
This is the information that you will find on a contour map.
What is elevation and steepness of the slope?
500
Global Temperature Rise, Warming Oceans, Sea Level Rise, Shrinking Ice Sheets, Glacial Retreat, Decreased Snow Cover and Declining Arctic Ice, and Extreme Weather Events are all evidence of _______________, the long-term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place.
What is climate change?