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Blackout!
Students read news reports and first-person accounts of a blackout in a large city and keep weblogs or journals. They take on different roles of people who live in the city or commute there to work and then use their journal accounts to...
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El Nino
Students recognize that El Nino is caused by changes in the atmospheric and ocean content. They conduct a simple experiment, visit websites and create a class poster using individual storyboards.
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A Geological Puzzle
Students compare and contrast the various types of rocks on each continent. In groups, the calculate the rock ages and types to determine if the continents, in their opinion, were joined at one time. They develop two imaginary...
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Why is a salt marsh important?
Students discuss the salt marsh. They define the following terms: habitat, water, land and air. Students work in small groups. They are asked why are they going to a salt marsh? Students discuss whose habitat is it at the salt marsh.
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Finding the Deep Water Masses of the Atlantic Ocean
Students describe the role of density in driving deep ocean currents and the density layers of the ocean. They determine that the ocean is one continuous body of water with global currents that interact, with water surrounding all...
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GPS Treasure Hunt for Knowledge
Students examine themselves as being part of a global community. In this global community activity, students investigate GPS systems. Students gain knowledge on how the device works. Students discover that satellites provide information...
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Jr. Chef Club Super Snacks Lesson 6
Students explore healthy snacks. In this nutrition and cooking lesson, students observe and identify food groups on USDA's MyPyramid food guide. Students discuss how fiber helps our digestive system and follow a recipe using yeast to...
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Ecology of The Sonoran Desert Soil Crusts: Biology, Geology
This lesson is designed after research done on the ecology of soil lichen in the Tucson Basin area during the summers of 1997 and 1998. Its purpose is to guide students into adopting the problem solving thinking of ecologists. The lesson...
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Rollin' on The River - the Hudson River!
Students examine how the Hudson River was important to the development of the United States. They examine the role of steamboats played in the development of the Hudson River Valley.
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One Path
Students discover that charge movement through a circuit depends on the resistance and arrangement of the circuit components. In a hands-on activity, students build and investigate the characteristics of series circuits. In another...
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Endangered Relationships
Students study the interrelationship between the horseshoe crab and red knot. In this ecology lesson, students explain why several species became extinct. They research about endangered species found in their region.
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Is There Liquid Water on Mars?
Students assess whether there is liquid water on Mars by analyzing images and data. In this planetary lesson students analyze temperature and pressure graphs and hypothesize about how water could have flowed on Mars.
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A Year (a Day or a Week) In My Life as a Shorebird
Students describe the basic life history of one shorebird common to their area. They use the writing process which includes brainstorming, rough draft writing, peer editing, and re-writing to create a factually and grammatically...
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Power Point Lesson Plan
Students create a multimedia animal research presentation based on the include criteria for both information and sideshow format. They follow directions on slide set-up from creating a slide to transitions and musical insertion.
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Sewage Spill into Biscayne Bay
Students use a hypothetical case study to learn about environmental health issues associated with water, recreational water, and sewage. They use an inquiry-based learning module to generate questions, draft a research plan, and generate...
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Island Biogeography and Evolution
Students use this activity as a logic problem that is based on real organisms and real data. The problem is to develop phylogenies for seven related populations of lizards living on the Canary Islands. Three phylogenetic charts are...
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Island Biogeography and Evolution: Solving a Phylogenetic Puzzle With Molecular Genetics
Learners engage in solving a logic problem based on real organisms and real data. They develop phylogenies for seven related populations of lizards living on the Canary Islands.
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Beaver, or not?
Learners study the role of the beaver in Illinois during the 1800's and how overtrapping cause the near extinction of the beaver colonies in Illinois by 1900. Students role play various people in 1945 who have an opinion about the...
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Ocean Floor Model
Students construct a simulated model of the ocean floor in a shoe box. They determine that the floor of the ocean is composed of hills, plains, ridges, trenches, and sea mounts. They draw out a plan for their ocean floor which includes...
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Career & Technology Education Introduction to Farming: Seeds of Successful Marketing
Students play an agronomy game. In this agriculture lesson plan, students explore modern farming practices pertaining to the cultivation of grains as they play a game that requires them to act as agronomy specialist as they...
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How the Environment Affects Our Health
Ninth graders explore how the environment affects health. In this infectious disease lesson, 9th graders investigate what environmental situations cause infections diseases. Students study the symptoms, treatments, prevention, and...
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Diversity in Insects
Second graders examine bug photos from across the world. For this biodiversity lesson, students use a field notebook to make observation of insect photos. The class gather on the floor to investigate a mock field of...
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Rapid Ecological Assessments
Students conduct an ecological assessment of a small area on school property. They inventory plant and animal life of a sample area and make calculations to determine implications for a larger area.
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State Poster Fair: US Geography, Social Science, Art
Students research a US state, design and construct a state 'poster' to display important facts about that particular state. They present their work to the class.