Earth Explorers: maps, rocks, dinosaurs, wildlife and bugs
Find your way with a map and compass, crack open the story of the rocks under our feet, meet the dinosaurs that lived here, and discover the wild animals and tiny creatures that share our coulees.
🗺 Map work
Read a map like a pro: scale, legends, contour lines and latitude. Make a play-dough contour map.
🧭 Compass and orienteering
“Red in the shed”, finding north by the sun and stars, and the sport of racing with a map.
⭐ Navigating by the stars
What a sextant is, how the North Star tells your latitude, and David Thompson, the man who gazes at stars. Make your own quadrant!
📍 Survey markers
Brass discs in the sidewalk, the mile-square checkerboard of our roads, and what W4M means.
💎 Rocks and minerals
The three kinds of rocks, the scratch test, and ammolite, Alberta’s own gemstone.
⛰ How our coulees were made
An ancient sea, the coal that built Lethbridge, Big Rock, and the floods that carved the coulees.
🦖 Dinosaurs of Alberta
Baby dinosaurs found near Warner, the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, and the Calgary Zoo’s Prehistoric Park.
🦌 Wildlife of the coulees
Gophers, rattlesnakes, bull snakes, backyard deer, owls and more, and how to share the coulees safely.
🐞 Bugs and insects
Count the legs, watch a caterpillar change, and become a gentle bug explorer.
Explore outside, safely
- Always tell an adult where you are going.
- Stay back from coulee edges and river cutbanks.
- Leave rocks, fossils and bugs where they belong in parks.
- Check the weather first! Live conditions from our station.
More to explore
- Geocaching: treasure hunts with GPS
- Candy hunt compass game
- Make It! crafts and projects
- Weather Wonders and Weather School
- Story Time
🏫 For teachers and parents
- Every Earth Explorers page has a hands-on activity, a quick quiz with answers, and teaching notes.
- Topics link to Alberta elementary and junior high science: rocks and minerals, animal life cycles, and planet Earth, plus mapping skills in social studies.
- Local field trip ideas: Helen Schuler Nature Centre, Galt Museum, Devil’s Coulee (Warner), Royal Tyrrell Museum, Big Rock near Okotoks.
- Spotted a mistake? Tell us in the Teachers’ Corner.