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What's The Flow?
Students examine urban runoff and identify peak flows. They examine causes for different flow rates, and complete worksheets and a graph.
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Farmers and Growers
Students explore the lives and work of the farmers and growers of specialty crops of the West. The amount of land and natural resources needed, the fertilizers utilized, and the market available for the crops are investigated in this...
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Back to the Earth
Students conduct an experiment in which they bury four objects (apple, lettuce, plastic and styrofoam) in the ground and come back to observe them a month later. They consider what biodegrades and how it affects our planet.
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Bean and Ozone Project
Middle schoolers performed an experiment in which they grew beans in an ozone chamber and some in regular air in order to see if the ozone causes damage to the plants.
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The Breathtaking Nature of the Urban Explosion, Part 2
Students explore ozone levels. They measure the concentrations of ground-level ozone in the atmosphere. Students observe changes in the concentrations of ozone over time. Students complete a data sheet to record ozone readings over a...
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Disposable vs. Reusable, Biodegradable vs. Non-biodegradable
Students examine and identify biodegradable and non-biodegradable materials. They discover ways in which biodegradable materials can help minimize pollution.
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Porosity And Permeability
Learners participate in an exercise/experiment designed to show how environmental pollution can affect the quality of drinking water.
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Erosion
Fifth graders study what erosion is, what causes it, and ways to slow its progress. They complete an experiment that depicts soil moving down a slope as water is poured on it to show how moving water erodes land. Next, they observe...
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Erosion
Young scholars discover the meaning of the word erosion and discuss effects of rocks and sticks upon the soil. They then work in small groups to construct a model of erosion to make observations and then write them in their science...
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Mud in the Water
Sixth graders investigate erosion. In this erosion lesson plan, 6th graders explore how farming changes the environment. Students construct an erosion model and research ways to protect the soil from excess mud generated by farming.
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Water Filtering
Young scholars investigate how polluted water is filtered so people can use this recycled resource. They conduct an experiment in which they put "polluted" water through a filtering system. They investigate what happens at a water...
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Aquatic Foodweb
Students explore what a food web is. In this science lesson, students examine how nutrients and other pollutants enter a lake and play a food web game whereby students pretend they are either zooplankton, planktivore,...
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Rainforest Vocabulary Words: Week 1
In these rainforest vocabulary worksheets, read the definitions and the matching terms for the following rainforest vocabulary terms: decomposers, deforestation, epiphytes, extinct, environment, pollute, vegetation, ecology, climate,...
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Our Water Resources
Students build a model aquifer to study groundwater zones and water table formation. Students use the models to measure the movement of polluted groundwater.
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What Trickles Down?
Learners explore different levels of permeability and compare the permeabilities of several different materials. They are introduced to the basic concepts of building design, landscape architecture, and environmental pollutant transport....
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It's a Small World After All! (Pond Microcosms)
Students use microscopes to investigate the diversity of life that exists in pond water. They then conduct a controlled investigation to study the effect of a pollutant (rice) on a microcosm ecosystem.
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Eye On Conservation Drainage Basin
Students are able to describe the importance of wetland vegetation. They describe the impacts human activities have on water systems. Students compare and contrast the effect of different soil types on water filtration.
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Martha Who?
Young scholars explore how the number and types of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and on abiotic factors, such as quantities of light and water, a range of temperatures, soil composition. They are...
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Creek Monitoring
Sixth graders conduct a variety of assessments at a local stream to determine if it is a suitable habitat for salmon. They measure temperature, tubidity, dissolved oxygen, pH levels, bacteria and nutrients. In this unit, 6th graders work...
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Conservation Collage
Students identify many different ways the environment is polluted, and determine ways to prevent pollution. They create a collage of pictures describing how the earth becomes polluted.
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Erosion
Fifth graders study the effects of running water on erosion. They examine how the soil on the playground is affected by erosion and determine how the placement of trees and shrubs changes the path of erosion. In their science journals,...
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Environment: A Day Around the Bay
Young scholars examine various scenarios about pollution around bays and discuss their reactions to them. Among the situations they investigate are construction site soil washing into a tributary, oil from motor boats leaking into...
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Identifying Wetlands
Students describe three major categories of indicators that are used to delineate wetlands. In this wetlands lesson students visit a wetland and make observations then complete an activity using the soil.
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Showdown in the New Wild West
What is the root of the conflict between ranchers and environmentalists? Middle schoolers write their impressions of what an environmentalist is and does. They read the New York Times article "In New Wild West, It's Cowboys vs....