A geotechnical engineer is a type of civil engineer who focuses on the mechanics of the land, rocks, and soils in the building process. This type of engineering includes, but is not limited to, analyzing, designing, and constructing foundations, retaining structures, slopes, embankments, roadways, tunnels, levees, wharves, landfills, and other systems that are comprised of rock or soil.

Students model Earth's tectonic plate movement and explore the relationship between these movements and different types of volcanoes.

This NASA visualization shows sea surface salinity observations (September 2011-September 2014). Students review the video and answer questions.

Software engineers play an important role at NASA as this field supports the success of our missions on Earth and beyond.  This field will continue to grow as it helps NASA address the many challenges that our agency faces.

Students will review the NASA Space Place video, "Tectonic Forces", and answer questions about tectonic plates.

This mini-lesson features time-series graphs of mean salinity at the surface for the Arctic and Antarctic regions. A series of questions guides students in their analysis.

Students will describe the changes in a newly-formed volcanic island over the first three years of its life.  

Students examine satellite images of a recently formed island to identify areas of erosion and deposition.

Compare pictures of different volcanoes. Then visit NASA's Space Place to learn about volcanoes and answer questions about volcanic eruptions.

In this mini lesson, students use in-water profiles of historical ocean data to analyze how sea surface salinity varies with depth.