Group items tagged

"Understanding Sustainability is a flexible, self-contained two-week curriculum unit aligned with national science standards for middle school educators to teach sustainability issues. The curriculum unit features hands-on activities that explore sustainability issues, such as energy, consumption, water scarcity, transportation choices, and potential solutions. "

"Climate Change, Grades 9-12 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues."

Mapping climate patterns, tornadoes, hurricanes, seismic activity, ecoregions and urban forests.

"The Hog Wild curriculum is an interdisciplinary unit designed to engage students in a simulation focused on the establishment of a hog farm in their local watershed. Students prepare for and engage in a simulated town council hearing on the establishment of a particular hog farm in the area. Participating groups of students will take on the role of different stakeholders, conduct research from the perspective of that group, create GIS maps to support their positions, and then present and defend their positions during the two day hearing. One goal of Hog Wild is to help students see the political, social and economic dimensions of environmental issues. This website contains a growing set of resources designed to support this curriculum. "

"Using GIS software applications can assist you in observing patterns in data as well as potential risks. Scientists use several indicators to monitor the quality and vulnerability of a watershed, which are recorded into a database. However, without the use of a GIS it would be difficult to assess the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. "

"The modern theory of Plate Tectonics is a combination of two earlier ideas, continental drift and sea-floor spreading. Once scorned, much evidence has now led to the acceptance of this theory by most geologists and geophysicists. In fact, Plate Tectonics is used to explain many global events such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain building, etc. You will relate the distribution of earthquake, volcanoes, and faults to the location of tectonic plates by mapping the locations of each of these processes. "

"This module contains an exercise in which students are asked to examine the frequency and distribution of earthquake epicenters and compare these epicenters to the distribution of plate boundaries and cities. Students download earthquake epicenters for the last several days and for an entire year from the Internet, and map the information using ArcView geographic information system (GIS), and analyze the patterns that become evident. The module presents background information on earthquakes and GIS, and includes step-by-step instructions for using the technological tools. This module can be adapted to a wide range of grade levels and may be presented as an introductory GIS exercise. It may be completed without a GIS by using a paper base map, but requires access to the World Wide Web (see Module Overview and Instructor's Notes)."

Understand how floods occur, and why floodplains are important to communities, with a case study of Boulder, Colorado, USA.

"What is the Earth Exploration Toolbook? The Earth Exploration Toolbook is a collection of computer-based Earth science activities. Each activity, or chapter, introduces one or more data sets and an analysis tool that enables users to explore some aspect of the Earth system. Step-by-step instructions in each chapter walk users through an example - a case study in which they access data and use analysis tools to explore issues or concepts in Earth system science. In the course of completing a chapter, users produce and analyze maps, graphs, images, or other data products. The ultimate goal of each activity is to build user's skills and confidence so they can use data to conduct their own investigations of the Earth system."

"In this activity, undergraduate students use Google Earth to investigate a variety of renewable energy sources and select sites within the United States that would be appropriate for projects based on those sources. These sources include solar energy, bioenergy, hydroelectricity, tidal power, wind energy, wave energy, and geothermal energy."

"In this exercise, undergraduate students use Google Earth and information from several web sites to investigate some of the consequences of climate change in polar regions, including the shrinking of the ice cap at the North Pole, disintegration of ice shelves, opening of shipping routes, effects on polar bears, and possible secondary effects on climate in other regions due to changes in ocean currents. "

"In this activity, undergraduate students learn to use satellite and aerial imagery, maps, graphs, spreadsheets, descriptive information, and statistics to compare energy and oil consumption rates between states in the United States and among various countries. They also use this information to explain these differences, as well as differences in categories of consumption, such as domestic, transportation, industrial, and commercial use. They are also asked for opinions regarding what measures countries should take toward reducing oil consumption. "

Science.gov now quickly finds science images, including animal and plant, weather and space, and earth and sun images and more. The information is free and no registration is required. Go to www.science.gov and select the Image Search link under Special Collections.

Despite its cumbersome title this wiki is saturated with extensive biodiversity data and information. It also has some stuff for educators at the very bottom of the index column on the right. This wiki "assists data providers and users of biodiversity management to promptly locate through hyperlinks over 200 datasets and services deployed at http://ecotropics.pbworks.com/"

"EcoTipping Points are small actions that tip the balance from decline to restoration by tapping the inborn power of nature and human societies to heal themselves." Case studies range from community gardens in NYC to reversing tropical deforestation in Thailand.

This interactive investigation explores these questions: - What evolutionary processes have affected the distribution of Earth's species today and in the past? - How do scientists study past evolutionary processes on Earth? - How do graphs and charts help scientists test their hypotheses?

# Many Planets, One Earth # Atmosphere # Oceans # Ecosystems # Human Population Dynamics # Risk, Exposure, and Health # Agriculture # Water Resources # Biodiversity Decline # Energy Challenges # Atmospheric Pollution # Earth's Changing Climate # Looking Forward: Our Global Experiment