Focus on Earthquakes
© 2012 Tasa Graphic Arts, Inc. 
This interactive earth science textbook has an amazing and very useful feature -- a real time seismic globe that shows the most recent earthquakes, as they happen. As a result, this is a wonderful way to show a class that we live on a continually moving, shifting planet. The app is organized in ebook fashion, with illustrations, photos, narrated animations, and slide shows, along with quizzes and review questions to test and reinforce understanding. Specific topics include the causes of earthquakes; the relationship between earthquakes and faults; earthquake waves; seismometers and earthquake detection; locating the source of an earthquake; measuring the size of earthquakes; earthquake damage and large historical quakes; tsunamis, firestorms, landslides, and liquefaction; earthquake prediction; and an in-depth discussion of the relationship between earthquakes and plate tectonics. The app was written by Ed Tarbuck and Fred Lutgens, and illustrated by Dennis Tasa, to be used as an in-class tool or for independent study. Weaknesses include the globe rotation is hard to control. This is a great way to bring the outside world -- quite literally -- into your classroom.
$3.99, iPad
Teaches: earth science, earthquakes
CTR Rating: 94%