Curated OER
Maintaining Strong Fisheries
Students play a game about the life cycle of a blue crab in order to witness the causes of changes in the crab population and discuss what a resource manager could do to keep a stable crab population. Students then create a game titled...
Curated OER
Investigating Space Requirement of Seed Plants
Students use scientific methods to investigate the effects of overpopulation of seed plants on growth in a limited living space. Students relate seed plant population findings to that of other organisms.
Curated OER
Population Biology
In this population activity, students complete a word search puzzle by finding the 17 terms associated with population biology.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Population Dynamics
Will human population growth always be exponential, or will we find a limiting factor we can't avoid? Young scientists learn about both exponential and logistic growth models in various animal populations. They use case studies to...
Space Awareness
Water is a Heat Sink
One of the key objectives of Europe's Copernicus Earth program is to monitor the temperatures of the oceans and seas on Earth. Young scholars learn the effects of different heat capacities through two experiments. These experiments...
PBS
Watercraft
Whatever floats your boat—with some additional weight. The first activity in a five-part series challenges pupils to design a boat to hold pennies. Using the design process, learners design, build, and test their boats, making sure they...
Columbus City Schools
Biome Basics with a Disastrous Twist
Bored with your current biome bag of tricks? This bundle is a bountiful bag of biome fun! Travel the globe with seventh graders and explore the biotic and abiotic factors that define our world's biomes. Then, introduce a little chaos to...
Curated OER
Exploring Ecology
Students explore the basics of ecology through numerous hands-on and relevant activities. They participate in an online food chain demonstration, which explores food web dynamics. They dissect owl pellets, examine the prey's bones, and...
Curated OER
White-tailed Deer: Beauty or Beast?
Students use study guides and videos to discuss the positive and negative impacts of white-tailed deer populations. In this wildlife management lesson, students view slides and discuss the natural history and value of deer as a resource....
Teach Engineering
Computer Simulation of the Sonoran Desert Community
See how changes in initial populations and parameters affect a biological community. Individuals use a special software program to simulate a desert community with five species. They adjust initial populations to see how the community...
National Park Service
Climate Science in Focus: A Streamflow River Study
Data speaks, but it's our job to determine what it's trying to say. Young scientists explore the changes in weather and climate using data from the Yosemite National Park in a six-day unit. Learners first compare weather and climate and...
Curated OER
Ecology Study Guide
In this ecology study guide, students fill in a table about producers, consumers and decomposers, they draw the water cycle, they fill in diagrams about cell respiration, the food pyramid, protein synthesis and nitrification, population...
Curated OER
Population Biology Case Study
Students are focused on the big question: What makes a population grow and how could that growth stop? They use these concepts to help answer the big question: carry capacity, density dependent v. density, independent factors, predation...
Curated OER
A Piece of Cake: Ocean Communities
Learners explain habitats. In this model based lesson students create a model to help describe a habitat that is typical of deep-water. Learners will describe how organisms such as coral and sponges add to their habitat.
Curated OER
Population Growth
Students examine the factors that affect population growth such as, the length of life cycles, carrying capacity and competition. In this population lesson students conduct an experiment on population growth and collect data and analysis.
Curated OER
Designing and Floating Boats
Students participate in an experiment to determine if a toy boat will sink or float. They make the boats out of different materials and determine its carrying capacity by adding pennies. They graph their findings on a classroom graph.
Curated OER
Diversity and Adaptations of Organisms
Eighth graders discuss ways in which to protect endangered species. They examine the concept of carrying capacity. They discuss the importance of carrying capacity for wildlife and people.
Space Awareness
Oceans as a Heat Reservoir
Oceans absorb half of the carbon dioxide and 80 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Scholars learn how and why the oceans store heat more effectively than land and how they help mitigate global warming. Pupils...
Curated OER
Meteorological Predictions
Middle schoolers make a link between prediction and hypothesis in math and science. Based on data collected over one week, students evaluate the predictions of local weather forecasters, compare the predicted outcomes to the actual...
Curated OER
MEASURING THE DENSITY OF WATER
Students perform an experiment to measure the density of tap water vs. salt water.
Curated OER
Solid Waste Recycling
Students seek scientific and technological solutions to envrionmental problems. They record class activities in a journal. They identify relationships among living things and their environments.
Curated OER
Game Management
Many factors that lead to conserving wildlife are covered on these slides. The meanings and definitions are clear, and the specific topics covered are relevant and complete. This slideshow would be very useful to include in a science,...
Virginia Department of Education
Succession
The final lesson in a two-part series prompts scholars to create newspaper articles and succession events. Applying their knowledge of the ecosystem and the past examples of succession, they predict what will happen in the future using...
Curated OER
An Exploration of Cradle-to-Cradle Design Thinking
Introduce cradle-to-cradle design thinking. Scholars first discuss the importance of natural laws and rights. They then use a variety of online and print resources to research eco-efficiency and cradle-to-cradle design.