APES Workshops

First introduced to me during my Environmental Education in Curriculum course, I've used a number of these lessons with great success. It's focus is on Place-Based learning activities. The lessons have been tested and developed in classrooms in urban areas, so they work! The books are in pdf and free! The goal is for students to "learn by doing."

Produced by Ken Burns, I watched all six episodes. They are inspiring, and although the episodes are not in their entirety, there are dozens of short clips with lessons written for each. When our students get politically aware, I'd like them to have an understanding of what a treasure national parks are; and the need to protect them.

Enormous amount of instructional material for teachers and students. Compiled by Sarah Bordenstein, Marine Biological Laboratory The Winogradsky Column is an excellent activity, specifically for grades 5 - 12, to demonstrate the growth of microorganisms. As a result of this activity, students will: learn about the metabolic diversity of prokaryotes, applying terms such as phototroph, chemotroph, autotroph, and heterotroph.

Join Leo, the young pig who wonders if he is "the one", Chickity, the feathered family farm defender, and Moopheus, the trench-coat-clad cow with a passion for green pastures as they expose the problems with factory farming while making the world safe for sustainable family farms. The Meatrix, translated into over 30 languages, is a worldwide phenomenon! These are three 2-3 minute animations on factory farming - an interesting way to introduce CAFO/factory farming.

Expensive ($800 for unlimited use over 3 years-4 labs) but outstanding simulations of Isle Royale, Paine keystone species tide pool, and pollution.

The Breathing Earth simulation Welcome to Breathing Earth. This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates. Please remember that this is just a simulation.

I've worked with these folks at UW and tested their "Halobacteria" Labs in my classroom. If you're in a low-income school, they'll send you everything for free. Halobacteria are a great, resiliant model organism to grow in your classroom. Also Sea Monkeys (Brine Shrimp) love them and you can do a whole salty ecological community. They have lots of modules on Systems Thinking and dyanamic biological and environmental systems. Love their "cell phone" unit.

Top Documentaries about Environment

APES website of Heather Wygant- I post all of my assignments-via links- on the calendar. all made with Google products: sites, calendar, drive.

For real time data of CO2 conc in different parts of Oakland, CA; the site also contains resources on climate change