Curated OER
Invasive Species
Students study exotic and native species, and examine how exotic species can impact native ones. They study how the mute swan effects native species.
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Working Animals
Students examine the need for the humane treatment of animals. In this animal welfare lesson, students realize the need for animal welfare, and decide on a service project that will promote it. The lesson culminates in the creation of a...
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Making a Human Tree
Young scholars explore botany by defining the anatomy of a tree. For this environmental exploration lesson, students research plant vocabulary terms and discuss the uses of each word. Young scholars create a "human" tree by role-playing...
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Investigating the Hydrosphere
No matter the scientific discipline, your students can benefit from a study of water.
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Art, Literature, & Environment
High schoolers communicate their thoughts on the environment by creating picture books for middle school students. High schoolers include their thoughts on population, deforestation, water, energy, endangered species, and waste in their...
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Echinoderms
In this echinoderm worksheet, students will explore the characteristics of echinoderms including their body structures and larval stages. Then students will match the five classes of echinoderms to their descriptions. This worksheet has...
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Mining in Texas
For this mining and nonrenewable resources worksheet, students read about mining in Texas and simulate the extraction of nonrenewable minerals. They use cookies and their components to represent the minerals they will mine and they...
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Seed Germination
Students germinate a Mung Bean seed. In this seed activity students conduct an experiment germinating a Mung Bean. They apply three different treatments to the seeds: dry, moist, and underwater incubation.
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Fish Hazards
Students study the Pacific salmon and see the different challenges they face. In this environment lesson students complete several activities that show how humans have affected the salmon environment. These activities have varying...
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Dirty Decomposers
Students explore the ecosystem by conducting a ziploc bag experiment. In this recycling lesson, students identify decomposer organisms in our environment and how they speed up the recycling process. Students utilize a ziploc plastic bag,...
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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,...
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Oil Spill Lesson Plans
With the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, now is a great time to educate students on issues related to oil.
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Introduction to Macroinvertebrates
Third graders investigate the world of macroinvertebrates and identify the environmental stressors that threaten their existence. Outdoors, they role-play as stressors and invertebrates, with the intolerant species doing pushups, spins,...
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Stream Flow in Blacks Creek
Students explore what factors affect the stream flow in a local body of water. They collect data to measure stream flow and discharge and construct a hypothesis concerning the factors affecting stream flow.
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Oily Oceans
Students, after reading Jack, the Seal and the Sea, by Gerald Aschenbrenner, get a hands-on knowledge of the effects of oil on water, and those things that come in contact with it.
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Acid Rain Keeps Falling On My Head
Students measure the pH of local rain water. Students map the location of the collected rain water according to pH levels.
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Wetlands/Watershed Model
Students make a model that will demonstrate the flow of surface water across the land in Texas and how materials that originate many miles away can end up in the wetland along the coast.
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Storm Drain Dumping
Students develop an awareness of what happens to water contaminated through neighborhood runoffs. Students perform an experiment that shows what happens to runoff when it's diverted to different places.
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Desert Xeriscaping
Seventh graders identify native species of desert vegetation, plan a xeriscape landscape, and recognize the importance of water conservation.
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Life in Extreme Environments - Lakes Under Ice
High schoolers collect chemical, physical, and biological data from a local lake throughout the year. In addition, students discuss the design of an experimental structure for water collection at several specific depths as well as assess...
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Identifying Wetlands
Young scholars 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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Science: Comparing Beer and Bread
Students compare and contrast cellular respiration in yeast and plant and animal cells. After discovering the role of yeast in making beer and bread, they describe the short and long term effects of alcohol on the nervous and digestive...
Teach Engineering
Capillarity – Measuring Surface Tension
How do cohesion and adhesion work together? The third installment of a nine-part series teaches young scientists the difference between adhesion and cohesion. They also learn how cohesion and adhesion work together to cause capillary...
Channel Islands Film
Island Cattle Ranching
Is cattle ranching on Santa Rosa island viable or non-viable? Rather than focusing on the issues of the transition of Santa Rosa island from a privately owned island cattle ranch to a national park, class members are asked to consider if...