This page will list specific data sources that students may be able to use in their secondary research projects.  All data will be from reputable sources:  government and university research mostly.  Some of the sites will have a tremendous amount of information and you will need to help student pick out what's important and show them how to read the data.  Data from tables on the web can be downloaded directly into Excel spreadsheets and graphed if you know how - let me know if you're interested in learning more about that.

Most links will be to Home Pages where you will navigate to the specific data page.  This is because I've noticed that many large sites re-arrange their pages periodically leaving dead links all over the place.

• New! Earthquake Databases (NOAA)
  Fabulous source of rich data for earthquake studies. Includes: 

  • Significant Earthquake Database.  Contains information on more than 5,000 destructive earthquakes from 2150 B.C. to the present.

  • Earthquake Intensity Database.  Contains damage and felt reports for over 22,000 U.S. earthquakes from 1638 to 1985.

  • See also: Volcano Database contains information for over 1500 volcanoes including information on the location, elevation, type and last known eruption.

• Energy Information Administration
  Data for energy consumption, generation, power plant emissions, etc. Organized by geography, fuel type, process, environment, etc. 

• US Fish & Wildlife Service
  Find information about Endangered Species Lists (plant & animal).  Includes US and other countries.  Information broken down by state, year, by taxa.

• Globe Project
  NASA sponsored. Environmental science data from around the globe collected by students following program approved measuring tools and protocols. Areas of data include atmospheric temperatures, soil temperatures, cloud cover, and much more.

• USDA Nutritional Values (PDF)
  Over 1,200 foods listed with nutritional values including water content!  Other information that may be useful, including a separate breakdown of food by nutrient,  is listed on their home page (which is where you should go if the above hyperlink is broken). Also includes links to sites that offer nutrition information for foods from other countries.

• NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration)
  A wealth of data on climate & weather.  Requires some navigation skills!

• Astronomical Data (US Naval Observatory)
  Including sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, position of sun & moon.

• U.S. Census Bureau
  All the data you would expect to find from the census bureau - population, income, housing, geographic distribution, families, etc. A large site where you may need to do some work to find specific data, but here's a start:  Census data back to 1790 (PDF Document).

• Country Studies
  Library of Congress historical, social, economic, and political analyses of individual countries.

• Animal Populations
  The Global Population Dynamics Database can be accessed from the Biodiversity page of the Center for Population Biology if the hyperlink above is broken. Extensive list of individual species, but data not easy to read - you'll need to do some work to figure out how to interpret the tables presented.