Curated OER
Distribution of Active Volcanoes Exercise
Students collect and plot data, then interpret the results and answer questions about the geologic causes and the human effects of volcanic eruption. They participate in a role-play activity and a virtual field trip, as well.
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Using GLOBE Data to Study the Earth System (College Level)
Students use the GLOBE Website to locate and study environmental data. They use the GLOBE Graphing Tool to display data. Students describe the role of solar energy in the annual fluctuations of soil moisture. They describe reservoirs and...
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Species and Spaces - At Risk at Home
Eleventh graders explore and compare Canadian biomes and investigate species at risk. They describe population growth and eco-regions in terms of climate and geography. They research and create presentations about the natural history and...
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Charles Darwin's Hardware Shop
Learners construct an evolutionary tree representing specialization, diversity, and selection using easily obtained materials. They use at least twenty pieces of hardware to classify then develop "evolutionary" relationships between the...
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The Use of Biocards for Topical Review
Students create biocards to represent vocabulary from their biology course. They review and reinforce their basic knowledge of terminology, structures, or concepts. They create the cards to test themselves or classmates.
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Earth's Radiation Budget
Twelfth graders explore the Earth's radiation budget using Earth radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data archived at the IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library. They use photometers and light sources to work through several hands-on activities...
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Dissect with Respect
Young scholars, through exercises and discussions, examine ethics involved in the process of choosing and using laboratory animals, respect for the animal they dissect and how to behave in an ethical manner as they dissect various lab...
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Stratospheric Ozone
Students explore about the structure of Earth's atmosphere and about the stratospheric ozone. They discuss how it is produced and destroyed, where it is located, why it is important, and how it is changing. Students investigate about...
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Writing about the climate
Students research the contributing factors to the Earth's paleoclimate. They determine the relevant climate data and use it to construct a science argument. In the process, they access data, capture images of the data plots, and...
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Molar Mass
Students apply the ideal gas law and Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure to develop an experiment which determine the molar mass of butane from disposable lighters. In small groups, they develop a procedure and have it approved before...
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Birds
Students study birds and examine the idea that they evolved from reptiles or dinosaurs. In this birds lesson students divide into groups and research one side of the debate, then at the end have the students debate each-other.
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How do protons stick together in a nucleus?
Pupils explain that the Standard Model of the atom includes particles beyond protons, neutrons, and electrons. They describe the nucleus as conglomeration of quarks that manifest themselves as protons and neutrons.
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The Forecast Factory
Students role play weather forecasting activities. They investigate weather forecasting processes such as equations, data analysis, announcing by role playing in a large lecture hall.
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Annotated Example of Socratic Questioning: Climate: Global Warming
Students compare and discuss short-term and longer-term global temperature data. They evaluate data from three sets of graphs and then participate in a structured whole class Socratic discussion on the possible causes of climate change.
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Oceans Socratic Questioning
Students participate in a whole class discussion of ocean-floor structures and plate tectonics. They respond to prompts in a structured sequence that lead them to conclusions about the role of plate tectonics in the creation of sea-floor...
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Solar System Socratic Questions
Students reflect on and discuss theories of how the solar system was formed. They respond to prompts in a structured sequence to relate the formation of the solar system and the age of the Earth.
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Annotated, Detailed Example of Socratic Questioning
Students identify and define the main components of the hydrosphere and the ways in which they interact with one another. They explore how changes in Earth's surface materials affect components of the hydrosphere and evaluate the effect...
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Time and Earth History Socratic Questions
Students develop a sense of geologic ("deep") time and the ways in which Earth scientists construct the geologic time scale. They study he major events that shaped Earth, including the origin and evolution of its lithosphere, atmosphere,...
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Biosphere Socratic Questions
Students examine the origin of life on Earth and its evolution through geologic time by participating in a whole class discussion. They respond to prompts that lead them to conclusions about the interactions among the biosphere and the...
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Goodbye Honey Buckets
Students investigate arctic geology and hydrology as well as tundra ecology as they consider options for sewage treatment. Public safety, environmental impact, and issues of construction and engineering be explored.
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Home, Home on the River
Students examine the complex issues that result from human use of ecologically sensitive areas. They investigate these issues from the point of view of their major/career path.
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Carbon Dioxide Exercise
Young scholars work in groups, plotting carbon dioxide concentrations over time on overheads and estimating the rate of change over five years. Stacked together, the overheads for the whole class show an increase on carbon dioxide over...
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Water Quality
Students use a microcomputer connected to a conductivity probe to measure the total dissolved solids in local area water samples. Students then compare their measurements with others in their class as well as other standard measurements.
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Planet Oit!
Twelfth graders use this game to find minerals given rocks and outcrops in a plausible (but not real) geologic setting. They play without outside encouragement for hours as the world is fun to explore and the scoring system encourages...