California Academy of Science
Tropical Belt
Where in the world is the equator? Explore a world map with your class, coloring in oceans, continents, and rainforests while locating the three major lines of latitude: the equator, Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of Capricorn. Discuss how...
Curated OER
The Future of Arctic Sea Ice
Learners research about the importance of sea ice to world climate and sea organisms. In this earth science lesson, students create a model of present and future Arctic sea ice communities. They discuss how ice melting affects...
Curated OER
Climatic Changes
In this weather worksheet, students read an excerpt describing the climate and extinction. Then they explain what the climate was like during the Age of Dinosaurs. Students also determine some factors that affected the climate during...
Curated OER
Global Warming: Life in a Greenhouse
Learners examine the evidence that scientists have used to support the existence of global warming and the greenhouse effect. How the concepts have been developed and evaluated form the focus of this lesson.
NOAA
Please Pass the Salt
Salinity is the focus of two experimenters that work to answer the question, How does salt change the physical properties of water? Super scientists compare the freezing rate of salt and fresh water, combine the two waters to...
NOAA
Calling All Explorers
Let's get moving! The second installment of a 2-part series of six adventures helps learners take part in individual explorations by sea and by land. After navigating the waters in an informative WebQuest, groups create and hide their...
Curated OER
Nowhere to Run
In this environmental science worksheet, students explore the different climate change around the world and summarize them. They fill in the table provided.
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Breaking the Ice: Who Controls the Northwest Passage?
Students consider the global climate issue. In this Northwest Passage lesson, students examine who has sovereignty of the passage and discuss the importance of the Law of the Seas and its impact on the global climate issue. Students...
Curated OER
Global Warming: Life in a Greenhouse
Students investigate the evidence and consequences of global warming. They read and discuss an article, conduct a debate, evaluate their community's climate statistics, log their gas consumption for a week, and develop a panel discussion...
PBS
Breaking it Down
After challenging themselves to correctly choose the form of erosion and length of time required for a given landform to develop, earth science class members model mechanical and chemical weathering with various lab demonstrations over...
Curated OER
The Atmosphere
Here is a suitable set of slides to use when teaching about the layers of the atmosphere, climate, global winds, and types of clouds. These slides will support a few different lectures. You will probably want to replace the diagrams with...
Curated OER
Sea Water Mixing and Sinking
Students investigate the role of temperature and salinity in determining seawater density. They use a Temperature-Salinity Diagram to examine the effects of mixing on density.
Curated OER
Signs of Change: Tree Rings
Young scholars identify and experiment with dendrochronology (the study of tree rings to answer ecological questions about the recent past) and come up with conclusions as to what possible climatic conditions might affect tree growth in...
NOAA
Why Should I Care?: Show How Increased Carbon Dioxide Makes the Ocean More Acidic
How does a change in pH affect the ocean ecosystem? Scholars explore the idea by making an acid-base indicator in part seven of the 10-installment Discover Your Changing World series. First, they explore impacts of carbon dioxide in...
Curated OER
Greenhouse Effect- Online Interactive
In this greenhouse effect activity, students learn about Earth's climate change by reading a 7 paragraph text. Students then answer 10 questions. This is an online interactive activity.
Curated OER
Oceans
Pupils use their prior knowledge to being their examination of the water cycle. In groups, they complete an experiment in which they can see water evaporating and coming back to the ground. They discover the ocean's water evaporates...
Curated OER
Global Warming
Learners read information about global warming and make their own greenhouse. In this global warming lesson plan, students read several pages of global warming and climate information. Learners then make their own greenhouse and answer...
Curated OER
Coral Bleaching in the Caribbean
Students practice analyzing images, maps and graphs from Internet-based educational resources. They explore the correlation between sea surface temperature and coral bleaching. Students comprehend that coral reefs are collections of tiny...
Curated OER
Breaking News English: Global Warming
For this Global Warming worksheet, students read the article, answer true and false questions, complete synonym matching, complete phrase matching, complete a gap fill, answer short answer questions, answer discussion questions, write,...
Curated OER
Temperature Changes: Atmosphere & Ocean
Students observe temperature differences of water and air in sunlight and darkness. They determine that the sun warms the Earth's surface, which controls global currents and climate, keeping the earth habitable. They discover water and...
Curated OER
Breaking it Down
High schoolers will identify the factors that contribute to erosion and weathering. They will start by differentiating between chemical and mechanical weathering. They then apply what they learned by playing the online jeopardy game. Key...
NOAA
History's Thermometers
How is sea coral like a thermometer? Part three of a six-part series from NOAA describes how oceanographers can use coral growth to estimate water temperature over time. Life science pupils manipulate data to determine the age of corals...
Curated OER
Climate Types
In this weather worksheet, middle schoolers describe the rainfall distribution found in two different areas of the world. Then they compare the various types of climates found around the world using the graphs shown on the sheet.
Curated OER
Sampling the Ocean Floor
Students sample goodies from an unseen ocean floor and try to accurately describe their composition. This simulation helps students explain the limitations of sampling and the problem of obtaining representative samples of sea floor...