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.
Follow this narrated video to make a backyard study plot and begin collecting your own scientific data to become a citizen scientist.
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.
This activity is designed to give students an understanding of how clouds are formed and how they can contribute to an ongoing citizen science project.
Learn about cloud formations over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in this video from Nature.
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service describes the many forces that affect shorelines, including tides, weathering, erosion, and deposition.
Students observe a burning candle and the byproducts given off through the burning process. This observation leads to a discussion to the effects of air pollution on our lives.
This article describes common misconceptions held by elementary students about the cause of day and night and seasons. The article provides ideas for formative assessment, teaching strategies, and the National Science Education Standards.
Carbon calculators, no matter how well intended as tools to help measure energy footprints, tend to be black boxes and can produce wildly different results, depending on the calculations used to weigh various energy factors. By comparing different calculators, learners can analyze which ones are the most accurate and relevant, and which are the most transparent.
In a multi-week experiment, students monitor the core temperatures of two compost piles, one control and one tended, to see how air and water affect microbial activity. They daily aerate and wet the "treated" pile and collect 4-6 weeks' worth of daily temperature readings. Once the experiment is concluded, students plot and analyze their data to compare the behavior of the two piles. They find that the treated pile becomes hotter, an indication that more microbes are active and releasing heat. Through this activity, students see that microbes play a role in composting and how composting can be used as a carbon management process.
Students explore the concept of biodegradability by building and observing model landfills to test the decomposition of samples of everyday garbage items. They collect and record experiment observations over five days, seeing for themselves what happens to trash when it is thrown "away" in a landfill environment. This shows them the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable and serves to introduce them to the idea of composting. Students also learn about the role of engineering in solid waste management.
This article from the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle provides appropriate science lessons for Grades K-5. The focus is on acquainting young learners with climate-change concepts that are not too complex for their grade level and will not frighten them. In each issue, the magazine develops articles around one of the seven essential principles of climate science. The author believes early lessons about water availability and extreme weather events will prepare students for complex climate concepts they will encounter in later grades.
This online quiz on sustainable development can be used in French language classes to prepare intermediate-level students for discussions on environmental topics. The resource is excellent for immersion and content-based instruction.
This video segment adapted from the Atmospheric Radiation Program explains the differences in the formation of tropical convective cloud systems over islands and over the ocean.
Students learn the meaning of preservation and conservation and identify themselves and others as preservationists or conservationists in relation to specific environmental issues. They use Venn diagrams to clarify the similarities and differences in viewpoints. They see how an environmental point-of-view affects the approach to an engineering problem.
In this video segment, ZOOM guest Cassie takes us on a tour of the coral reef near her home in Key Largo, Florida, and points out some of its unique features.
This assignment engages students in an environmental history class in the use of quantitative data, and raises questions about the nature and meaning of that data, and how it might be utilized.
In this video segment adapted from Navajo Technical College, meet a dendroclimatologist who studies the relationship between precipitation and tree growth in the Navajo Nation.
Students design and build model landfills using materials similar to those used by engineers for full-scale landfills. Their completed small-size landfills are "rained" on and subjected to other erosion processes. The goal is to create landfills that hold the most garbage, minimize the cost to build and keep trash and contaminated water inside the landfill to prevent it from causing environmental damage. Teams create designs within given budgets, test the landfills' performance, and graph and compare designs for capacity, cost and performance.