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Concern + Action = Clean Air Solutions
Middle schoolers participate in a service project about improving air quality. In this air quality instructional activity, students understand the problems and solutions for improvement of air quality issues. Middle schoolers discuss and...
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Planting Phil's Garden
Students explore gardening. In this agriculture lesson plan, students plan and plant seeds according to the procedure modeled by a "master gardener." Flowers are distributed at a local retirement home.
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Hazardous Chemicals? Not in my Water!
Students reflect on the effects of their actions on the environment. In this community service instructional activity, students investigate the hazardous quality of products within their homes. Student educate their families and...
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Evergreen's Green Team Energy Audit
Students investigate the ways energy is used at their school and how it can be changed. In this energy lesson, students participate in a service project related to energy. Students record and calculate changes that saved energy and the...
Government of South Australia
Don't Waste Your Energy
Don't lift another finger, this physical and environmental science unit has everything you need to begin teaching your class about energy. Starting with a look at the greenhouse effect, these lessons and activities take young scientists...
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Habitat Basics
First graders get out and explore two different habitats to examine how each one meets the needs of the plants and animals that dwell there. They discuss what they've learned about animal habitats as they explore the outdoor environment....
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Investigative Case - Los Angeles and the Future of Mono Lake
Students use this WebQuest to be able to comprehend the natural history and biological diversity of the Mono Basin, an environment directly affected by the needs of humans. They explain what makes Mono Lake unique, including the extreme...
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Changing With the Tide
Students research and they role-play the behavior of plants and animals in a salt marsh habitat as the tides change.
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The Sleeping Mountain
Students conduct research on the activity of Mammoth Mountain, a volcano in California. They role-play as townspeople whose lives and livelihoods are endangered by an active volcano that may or may not erupt in the near future. They...
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Runaway Greenhouse Effect Exercise
Students role-play biologists, coal geologists, space warfare experts, astronomers, pollution-control scientists, and hydrophysicists as they answer the question, "Why is Venus so much hotter than the Earth?"
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Coral Bleaching: Making Our Oceans Whiter
Students study coral reefs and the controversy over coral bleaching. They role-play a debate over the issue and come up with a compromise to protect the reefs and the economies that depend on them.
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A Golden Opportunity for Science
Students participate in a varity of activities surrounding "gold." They explore the science, myths, and legends about gold and conduct a debate over the environmental problems created by gold mining in a small small mining town.
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WorldWatcher Project: Global Warming Project
Students conduct lab activities, computer visualizations, and other various forms of research in preparation for a role-play activity in which they assume the identities of advisors to various heads of state on the subject of global...
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Allosaur Survival Game
Students uses this game to see how difficult survival is even for a fierce predator, especially when it is young. It stresses: How much energy it takes to keep a large animal alive or a small one growing, The differences in the fauna...
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World Population Activity II: Excel
Learners import UNEP World population data/projections from either the World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision Population Database - UN Population Division or a text file. They graph this data by itself, and then along with...
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World Population Activity I: Excel
Students use Excel to explore population dynamics using the Logistic equation for (S-shaped) population growth. This activity is primarily intended as an introductory tutorial on using Excel.
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Sea Floor Spreading I
Students use Excel to explore the geodynamics Model equation for ocean depth around a sea-floor spreading center. They use an equation relating ocean floor depth to sea floor spreading rate and distance from spreading center for a...
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Investigative Case - Protistan Tales of Atlantic White Cedar Swamps
Students use this WebQuest to explore the vast diversity of microbes, especially those microbes of the Atlantic Cedar Swamps. They tell a story about the protests of the Atlantic Cedar Swamp in the form of anthropomorphism.
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Contour Basics: JAVA Mac/PC
Students explore how to draw contour lines from limited data and extend this knowledge to real data sets. They participate in many opportunities from students to assess their own progress and the exercise is completely online.
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Habitat Cards
Students discuss the relationship between a habitat and the environment. In groups, they use the internet to research the relationship between the animals and the habitat on their card. They present their information to the class to...
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Being P-Waves and S-Waves
Students participate in a demonstration in which they, themselves, represent seismic P-waves and S-waves.
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Mock Environmental Summit
Students increase understanding of human impact on Earth's sytems and the climate. They develop persuasive and critical skills as writers and presenters. They become familiar with political decision making processes.
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Global Temperatures
Students analyze the global temperature record from 1867 to the present. Long-term trends and shorter-term fluctuations are both evaluated. The data is examined for evidence of the impact of natural and anthropogenic climate forcing...
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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...