Curated OER
Pollution Prevention
Students investigate how to reduce solid and hazardous waste, and estimate the amount of household hazardous waste in their community. Students discuss methods of changing people's habits, and how to convince them to use alternative...
Curated OER
Green Chemistry
The principles of pollution control on a molecular level are summarised here. The reasoning and study behind the principles are described, and your class will undestand how some techniques are developed to be more efficient.
Curated OER
Risk Communication: Media Presentation Exercise
Students work in groups to prepare a brief broadcast or print news report from one of five possible viewpoints about an environmental contamination scenario. Students are given basic information about a chemical spill in a small town and...
Nuffield Foundation
Enzyme-Catalysed Synthesis
Enzymes: not just for breaking chemicals apart. Young biologists perform an experiment on potatoes. They first remove starch from potato extract. They then add the resulting liquid to samples of glucose-1-phosphate, glucose, maltose, and...
US Environmental Protection Agency
A Mock Town Meeting on a Proposed Tank Farm
Intended as a follow up to the Protecting Your Drinking Water activity, young environmentalists use their assessment of the a hypothetical town's water supply to debate the installation of underground chemical storage tanks. With...
Royal Society of Chemistry
Pollutants in Air (14-16)
Polluted air contains more than 200 chemicals that age the skin, causing urban women to appear 10 percent older than their rural peers. An interesting interactive connects air pollutants and related data. Scholars work their way through...
Curated OER
Nuclear Chemistry Project
Radiation has numerous real-world applications, some of which are relatively safe while others can be extremely hazardous. In this nuclear chemistry project, young scientists choose a practical use of nuclear reactions to...
Pingry School
Solubility Product of an Ionic Compound
How do scientists determine when a solution is fully saturated? Scholars address the topic as they observe patterns of precipitation in various concentrations of ions. Using a well plate, pipette, and common chemicals, they collect data...
Curated OER
Resources - A Reading Guide
In this resources activity, students compare and contrast physical and chemical properties and changes. Students review the periodic table, pattern of atomic numbers and chemical reactivity. This activity has 56 short answer questions.
Curated OER
Love Canal-A Man Made Disaster
Students watch a "Waste Management" Power Point as well as a "Love Canal" PowerPoint (a link is provided for the second presentation). Students write the chemical formula for each chemical and convert the contamination to grams using...
Curated OER
Preventing Household Hazards
Students identify how household materials can be hazardous to themselves and family members. Precautions for preventing and/or minimizing various hazards are discussed as a class. Working in pairs, students create a directory of...
Curated OER
What is the Risk?
Students investigate the 1950's pollution tragedy in Minamata, Japan. The elements of dose, response, individual susceptibility, potency, and threshold of toxicology are explored in this lesson plan.
Royal Society of Chemistry
Acids and Bases—Microscale Chemistry
Here's proof that small-scale labs lead to big-time learning. Introduce acid-base interactions to middle school scientists through a microscale chemistry lab. Pupils combine a variety of solutions and use indicators to obtain approximate...
Curated OER
Water Pollution
Get your scientists engaged in both recall and life application responses after reading a selection from a McGraw Hill science text (not included). Based on chapter 14, this water pollution worksheet has students review where water...
Curated OER
In Katrina's Wake
You will need to go to the National Center for Biotechnology Information website to obtain the article, "In Katrina's Wake." Have your class read it and examine maps of where toxic chemicals were located in Louisiana at the time,...
Curated OER
Bhopal Gas Tragedy
Useful as a model for an individual research presentation, these slides cover the Bhopal Gas disaster. Information cited includes data about the hazard rating of the chemical as well as the health effects of the dumping. Both science and...
Curated OER
A Safe Food Supply? Is Your Food Safe to Eat?
Viewers of this slide show learn that pesticides used on food crops can be harmful, but that there are certain allowable levels that should not be hazardous. They find out the rigorous process of inspection that meat must go through...
Curated OER
How Do Plants and Animals Change the Environment Around Them?
If you have elodea and snails in your classroom aquarium, or if you have access to a pond with these organisms, your young biologists can set up a controlled experiment to determine how certain ecosystems respond in light and dark...
Curated OER
Lab Safety Rules
In this lab safety rules worksheet, students are given fourteen rules for safety in the laboratory. They include wearing safety goggles, wearing proper clothing, not horsing around in the lab and not forcing tubing into stoppers.
Curated OER
Waste: Where Does It Come From? Where Does It Go?
Students work together to identify sources of hazardous waste in their community. They discover the threat it poses to the environment. They examine how to properly dispose of hazardous waste as well.
Curated OER
Toxicology 2: Finding the Toxic Dose
Young scholars brainstorm with group partners to decide upon a chemical they would like to test, and outline a procedure for their investigation. They then present in groups their ideas to the rest of the class as well as the chemical...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Impacts of Climate Change
Scholars become experts on the eight major impacts of climate change through a jigsaw and grand conversation. They then research and present what they learned about effects specific to their region.
Salt River Project
How Do We Clean Polluted Water?
How do we clean up oil spills and other pollutants in the water? Explore water treatment strategies with a set of environmental science experiments. Groups remove oil from water, work with wastewater treatment, and perform a water...
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Don't Mess with Mercury (Lesson C)
The health effects of mercury exposure if the focus of the first of three activities about the properties of metals. Pairs research mercury to write, prepare, and share posters, articles, or PSAs with the class.