This lesson uses centers to reinforce the five senses incorporating backyard science in the wonderful world of nature.
Students learn the fundamentals of using microbes to treat wastewater. They discover how wastewater is generated and its primary constituents. Microbial metabolism, enzymes and bioreactors are explored to fully understand the primary processes occurring within organisms.
This ZOOM video segment shows how to create a self-contained environment and explores evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
This interactive resource adapted from NASA describes the different temperature, precipitation, and vegetation patterns in seven biomes: coniferous forest, temperate deciduous forest, desert, grassland, rainforest, shrubland, and tundra.
This article features children's literature about arctic, Antarctic, and migratory birds.
COSI Connects launches audiences of all ages into a universe of science through online videos, activities, plus a free mobile app that enables science exploration even when offline. COSI Connects is helping to bridge the digital divide, promote digital literacy, and address critical science education needs simultaneously. This repository of activities and videos is for learners of all ages and is a great supplement to at-home learning or for use in the classroom.
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, find out how cars made of a material stronger than steel and half the weight can help combat climate change.
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service presents the key concepts of cave and karst systems, including how and where they form, different types, and various cave environments.
Two lessons and their associated activities explore cellular respiration and population growth in yeasts. Yeast cells are readily obtained and behave predictably, so they are very appropriate to use in middle school classrooms. In the first lesson, students are introduced to yeast respiration through its role in the production of bread and alcoholic beverages. A discussion of the effects of alcohol on the human body is used both as an attention-getting device, and as a means to convey important information at an impressionable age. In the associated activity, students set up a simple way to indirectly observe and quantify the amount of respiration occurring in yeast-molasses cultures. Based on questions that arise from this activity, in the second lesson students work in small groups as they design and execute their own experiments to determine how environmental factors affect yeast population growth.
In this video adapted from the Arctic Athabaskan Council, learn how warmer temperatures in the Arctic are transforming the landscape, triggering a host of effects such as permafrost thawing and insect infestations.
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists are on the hunt for tornadoes. Using Doppler radar, they gather data in the hopes of solving the mystery of how tornadoes form.
In this video produced for Teachers' Domain, learn about MIT professor Cathy Drennan's research into microorganisms that remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.
To increase students' awareness of possible invisible pollutants in drinking water sources, students perform an exciting lab requiring them to think about how solutions and mixtures exist even in unsuspecting places such as ink. They use alcohol and chromatography paper to separate the components of black and colored marker ink. Students witness first-hand how components of a solution can be separated, even when those individual components are not visible in solution.
The push to modernize Mexico's water and sanitation systems not only saved human lives, it also spurred economic growth, as illustrated in this video segment adapted from Rx for Survival.
Engineers design methods of removing particulate matter from industrial sources to minimize negative effects of air pollution. In this activity, students will undertake a similar engineering challenge as they design and build a filter to remove pepper from an air stream without blocking more than 50% of the air.
Students learn about a special branch of engineering called bioremediation, which is the use of living organisms to aid in the clean-up of pollutant spills. Students learn all about bioremediation and see examples of its importance. In the associated activity, students conduct an experiment and see bioremediation in action!
This video adapted from KTOO takes a look at Earth's warming and cooling cycles and the current atypical trend of warming that is impacting the glaciers in Alaska's Inside Passage.
Learn how a family farm in Wisconsin functions and how it is impacted by climate change in this multimedia video produced by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.
In this video segment adapted from NOVA: Becoming Human, learn how the analysis of rock layers and ocean sediments supports the theory that rapid climate change may have jump-started human evolution two million years ago.
Learn about cloud formations over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in this video from Nature.