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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Students brainstorm and share opinions about products that can be reused or recycled after reading the article, "Seattle's Recycling Success Is Being Measured in Scraps." They then investigate, analyze and evaluate articles on recycling...
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Forests Need People
For this forests and people lesson, 3rd graders brainstorm what forests are used for, discuss forest habitats, and how human interventions have affected trees and animals that depend on the forest environment. Students read the books,...
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Wood You Believe: Wood Products
For this wood products lesson, students walk to a forest near their school where they sit by themselves for a few minutes and quietly observe their surroundings. Students brainstorm wood or wood by products, discuss everything we get...
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To Fish or Not to Fish?
Students demonstrate the decision-making process for marine reserves designations. In this role-playing lesson students analyze maps and data relating to a proposed reserve. They formulate the best decisions based on overall issues.
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The Value of a Garden
Students explore the history of taxonomy, the work of Carl Linnaeus, and the factors involved in the decline and extinction of a variety of botanical species.
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Land Use Decision
Students identify social and ecological considerations where human uses of land and trees conflict with each other and ecosystem needs, and describe importance of land-use management and planning through role play.
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Compare Topography of Earth and Mars with a Worldwide Telescope
Young scholars compare geography to topography. In this topography lesson, students examine the topography of the surfaces of the Earth. Young scholars compare one feature of Earth to one feature of Mars and present in a PowerPoint.
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The Robot Ranger
Students participate in an experiment to understand how robotic systems can estimate distances. In this robotic ranger lesson, students measure the the time it takes for and object to move back and forth. Students will use a tennis...
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Attributes of Renewable Energy: From Nanopossibilities to Solar Power
High schoolers explore solar energy, why we use it and how we use it. In this renewable energy lesson students compare active and solar techniques.
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Marine Life Research and Persuasive Conservation Pamphlet
Tenth graders examine conservation and research a type of fish that is under environmental stress. In this conservation lesson students create a pamphlet about the conservation of a marine organism.
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After the Garbage Can: Where Does Our Trash Go?
Learners explore how waste disposal has changed over time and what the current issues are. In this disposal instructional activity students collect data and create graphs.
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Survival of the Fittest Microbes
Young scholars explore the harsh conditions of Spain's Rio Tinto River and research the microbes that nonetheless manage to thrive there. They synthesize their knowledge by creating a reality television show set in the Rio Tinto with...
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What Makes Up a Healthy Watershed
Students, after observing the elements of a local watershed, explore the need to protect watersheds as water resources for the future. They examine the factors involved with a watershed: geology, ecology, and the effect of man's...
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Food Chains
Students study food chains by creating their own slide show using KidPix. They compare information after sharing their slide shows as a whole group. As the children are watching the slide shows of their peers, they tally every time...
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Building a Butterfly Garden
Students examine the habitat and life cycle of a butterfly. For this early childhood lesson plan, students identify the parts of a butterfly, as well as the stages of the butterfly life cycle. Students also plant a garden in which they...
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Kids Need Natural Resources
Third graders define renewable and non-renewable resources and give multiple examples of each type of resource. In this environmental science lesson, 3rd graders sort picture cards into two categories, renewable and non-renewable...
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Oil + Water + Students= Knowledge
Middle schoolers create advertising with the intent of protecting wildlife. In this service learning lesson plan, students craft advertisements and write persuasive essays regarding the protection of wildlife.
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I'll Stay Here if It Kills Me!
Students examine coastal ecology. In this coastal resource lesson, students engage in several activities designed to examine the natural and cultural resources of coastal areas. Students then establish regulations to keep coastal areas...
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Entering the Twilight Zone
Students describe major features of cold-seep communities and the process of chemosynthesis as it relates to organisms in each habitat. In this deep-sea habitats lesson plan, students study the categorization of ocean habitats according...
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Linear Motion
In this fantastic physics and math lesson, student pairs create a ramp that will transport a rolling marble in order to learn about linear motion. Students use cardboard, straws, toothpicks, marshmallows, and paper clips in order to make...
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"Writing As Healing" Exercise
Students begin with a teacher-leld discussion of recent research, which has found measurable imporovements in patient symptoms even four monthe after their participation in a brief writing exercise about a stressful event in the...
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Scavenger Hunt
Students explore area around schoolyard by participating in scavenger hunt, examine things that live there, such as noxious weeds, develop observation skills by using five senses, and find and identify ten to fifteen local, natural objects.
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Is a Pulley a Special Kind of Lever?
Fifth graders use information from their text to read and discuss pulleys and levers. They examine a top sketch of the arrangement of a fixed pulley. Working in groups, 5th graders perform experiments to test the effect of using a pulley...
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Beaver, or not?
Students 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...