Hazard sites to consider

Spatial Worlds website
Picture descriptions:
Left image: Coastline around Dingle Bay, Southern Ireland.
Right image: Suburban Athens from the Acropolis.

Hurricane Katrina
This link is worth a look to see how digital media is being used to do virtual tours:
Microsoft Research's Interactive Visual Media Group have devised a 360-degree video camera that helped MSNBC provide unique Web coverage in the wake of last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina.
http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/tour.html

Bushfire monitoring
CSIRO Sentinel Bushfire mapper is a site geared to emergency service personnel and provides up-to-the-minute hot-spot information for Australia. The satellite information is regularly updated and hotspots can be viewed from the last 12 hours up to 72 hours ago. However data can also be viewed for specific dates in the past, for instance the Canberra bushfires in January 2003.
http://www.sentinel.csiro.au/

New Zealand disaster sites and links
This website from New Zealand Civil Defence and Emergency Management is full of great natural hazards links and information as well as some simple mapping of disaster sites in New Zealand. Certainly student friendly and a good example of using spatial technology to inform.
http://www.whatstheplanstan.govt.nz/mcdem/index.html

The Geography of Terrorism'
This article in the 'Directions' Magazine looks at the importance of geography and the Spatial Sciences (GIS etc) when managing terrorist events.... An interesting read and a good way to promote Geography!
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=328&trv=1.

Global change
This website provides links to a wide range of data sets related to global change. For example data on ice and snow, hydrology, ecology, atmospheres, agriculture etc.
http://www.globalchange.gov/

World health
This site gives maps and data on topics related to environmental health i.e. atmosphere contaminants, disease, water pollution etc
http://health.usgs.gov/

Floods Maps
This site is an interesting site to simulate sea level rise around the world. Select the part of the world you wish to see the impact of sea level change and then select the sea level rise in metres. Check out the satellite image of Adelaide with a 14 metre rise in sea level!
http://flood.firetree.net/

Asian Tsunami
The University of Singapore CRISP has produced a website of remotely sensed images. While not an online GIS, this site is worthy of mention. It contains many before and after satellite images and aerial photographs covering the extent of the Boxing Day Tsunami. An excellent resource that students will enjoy using.
http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/tsunami/tsunami.html

Geoscience Australia’s Community Risk
This link goes to the interactive online mapping system for Geoscience Australia's Community Risk in Cairns project. The mapping system on the site allows you to zoom in and out, pan around the map, and also access risk information for individual suburbs.
http://www.ga.gov.au/map/cairns/

Population clock
The population of the world and Australia grows by the second. This page of the Australian Bureau of Staistics site provides quite an insight into change over time.
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a900154b63?OpenDocument