Chicago Botanic Garden
Causes and Effects of Climate Change
It's time for your class to literally show what they know! Pupils illustrate what they learned about the causes and effects of climate change by filling out a graphic organizer to complete the 5-part series of lessons. They discuss them...
American Museum of Natural History
What is Earth?
Humans have only inhabited Earth for a short part of its existence. An online resource explains how scientists use clues from rocks and fossils to piece together information about Earth prior to humans. The online instruction includes...
Curated OER
The Day After Tomorrow: How is the Density of Water Related to Climate Change and Global Warming?
Science learners simulate what happens when ice breaks up and floats on water and how increased pressure on ice causes it to melt faster. They view a clip from the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, and relate their lab activities to what...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Historical Climate Cycles
What better way to make predictions about future weather and climate patterns than with actual climate data from the past? Young climatologists analyze data from 400,000 to 10,000 years ago to determine if climate has changed over...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Climate Change Around the World
It is unknown if cloud cover increases in response to carbon dioxide levels changing, helping climate change slow down, or if cloud cover decreases, allowing Earth to warm faster. Part four in the series of five lessons has classes...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Causes and Effects of Climate Change
Wrap-up a unit on global climate change with a activity that examines the causes and effects of climate change. Learners fill out a chart that represents what they think causes climate change—natural and human-based—and what they think...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Climate Change Around the World
You know climate change is happening when you see a bee take off its yellow jacket. Part four in a series of five lessons explores all factors affecting climate change: temperature, cloud cover, precipitation, and carbon dioxide. By...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Review and Assessment: Causes and Effects of Climate Changes
The last activity in the series of five is a short one where individuals show what they've learned about the causes and effects of climate change. Working independently, they fill in a graphic organizer, then compare their notes with a...
Curated OER
Introduction to Earth's Dynamically Changing Climate
Students identify the most common causes of global warming. In this earth science lesson, students use an interactive website to explore changes over time in sea ice, sea level, carbon emissions, and average global temperature. They take...
Curated OER
Glacier Dynamics
Students create flubber glaciers. In this glacier dynamics lesson, students experiment factors that may affect glacier speed. Factors include slope, ice temperature, and basal conditions. Students develop hypothesis, conduct experiment,...
Curated OER
Climate Shifts
Eight slides of information related to shifts in the climate make up this presentation. The vocabulary and concepts displayed are geared toward high school meteorology learners. Content is not cohesive from slide to slide, but the...
Curated OER
Climate Change Challenge
Students participate in a demonstration in which they role-play polar bears and habitat components to demonstrate the impacts of climate change on the Arctic Ocean ecosystem.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
EarthViewer
Can you imagine Washington DC and London as close neighbors occupying the same continent? Learners will be fascinated as they step back in time and discover the evolution of the earth's continents and oceans from 4.5 billion...
Curated OER
Climate Change: Carbon Cycle
Students explore the carbon cycle. In this carbon cycle lesson, students discuss the four main reservoirs where carbon is stored and then discover the process through which each reservoir absorbs and releases CO2. This lesson includes a...
Curated OER
Explosive Ideas: Oregon quarter reverse
Explore Earth and her amazing layers with this lesson on planetary change. Students will research the ways in which Earth's layers cause change. They will complete a "Tectonic Puzzle" and use a worksheet to answer questions about Earth's...
Oregon State
World Map of Plate Boundaries
Young geologists piece together the puzzle of plate tectonics in an earth science lesson. Given a physical map of the world, they search for land formations that indicate the location of different types of plate boundaries.
Curated OER
PLATE MOVEMENTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Students label three geological maps with continents provided to analyze the relationships between the movement of tectonic plates and the changes in the climate. In small groups, they discuss their findings and form hypotheses about the...
Curated OER
Exploring Climate Change with GIS
Students investigate climatological changes that are occurring to the Earth. In this climate change lesson, students access an assigned web site to view maps and lessons that show how climate change makes a difference to life on Earth.
Curated OER
Explosive Ideas!
Young scholars explore the layers of the Earth and the dynamic changes that they cause on Earth's surface. Volcanoes and earthquakes become the focus of the lesson as the Oregon State quarter and its Crater Lake images are linked to the...
NASA
The Science of the Sun
There's more to that glowing ball of light in sky than most children realize. From the overall structure of the solar system, to the changing of the seasons, these hands-on lessons open the eyes of young scientists to...
Carnegie Mellon University
Bathtub Model
Using a colorful infographic handout and a guide sheet, hold a class discussion about how a bathtub can serve as a model for the greenhouse effect created by Earth's atmosphere. Participants will understand that as energy or matter is...
Curated OER
Earth Science - Earth's Atmosphere
High schoolers build an understanding of the dynamics and composition of the atmosphere and its local and global processes influencing climate and air quality. They analyze global atmospheric changes including changes in CO2, CH4, and...
Curated OER
Investigating the Dynamic Martian Polar Caps
Students download NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of the Martian polar ice caps in summer and winter, and measure and compare various images of the changing Martian and Earth polar ice caps.
Chicago Botanic Garden
Historical Climate Cycles
Scientists use ice core samples to obtain temperatures of the earth from 400,000 years ago! The third of five lessons instructs pupils to interpret historical climate data to see changes over time. In part I, participants interpret...