This informational text introduces students to similarities and differences in the North and South Poles. The text is written at a grade one through two reading level. This is a PDF containing the informational text and a glossary.

This article describes common misconceptions about the Arctic and Antarctica and how to test and teach for student understanding.

In this lesson, students will explore several contemporary issues facing the Great Lakes, including naturally occurring phenomena, such as invasive species, and issues that arise as a result of human activity, such as chemical pollutants.

Prior to remote work, work had begun on the social studies instructional strategies and supports to supplement the standards and model curriculum. The work was not completed prior to the COVID-19 shutdown but the draft version of partially completed document is what is being shared with educators.

This article highlights lesson plans and activities that help elementary students develop map skills as they learn earth science concepts.

This article provides links to web sites that describe the Arctic and Antarctica in terms of geography, climate, and ecosystems.

Geographic information systems (GIS), once used predominantly by experts in cartography and computer programming, have become pervasive in everyday business and consumer use. This unit explores GIS in general as a technology about which much more can be learned, and it also explores applications of that technology. Students experience GIS technology through the use of Google Earth on the environmental topic of plastics in the ocean in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The use of this topic in GIS makes the unit multidisciplinary, incorporating the physics of ocean currents, the chemistry associated with pollutant degradation and chemical sorption to organic-rich plastics, and ecological impact to aquatic biota.

Students pass around and distort messages written on index cards to learn how we use signals from GPS occultations to study the atmosphere. The cards represent information sent from GPS satellites being distorted as they pass through different locations in the Earth's atmosphere and reach other satellites. Analyzing GPS occultations enables better global weather forecasting, storm tracking and climate change monitoring.

This short lesson was designed in collaboration with a 7th grade Life Science teacher (Paul Jeffery). The idea behind the lesson is to help students better understand ecological and geographical classifications by teaching them at the same time in their Life Science class and their Geography class. Teaching the two classifications together will help reinforce the idea of classification. While this lesson would best be taught outdoors it can also be adapted to the indoors.

This article provides an overview of orienteering and geocaching as well as suggestions for incorporating these activities into elementary classrooms

In this lesson, students deepen their knowledge of physical and geographic features of the Great Lakes by exploring one of the five Great Lakes in depth with a study group and creating a “for sale sign” poster to present to the class for one of the Great Lakes.

This activity is a field investigation where student create a life-sized contour map and discuss why some contour lines are different from others.

This activity is a field investigation where students will be able to observe sinkholes located in the southeastern Minnesota area and a cave system in Forestville State Park which will assist them in defining Karst topography.

This article gives background information on the Iditarod race in Alaska and shows how the race can be used in Grades K-5 classrooms to incorporate science, geography and language arts. The author provides links to resources that involve reading expository tests and writing assignments as well as working with real-time data. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears.

This article includes integrated lessons, activities, and ideas for teaching about exploration and polar explorers in the elementary classroom.

This activity is an investigative introduction to mapping. Students create maps and determine important map features.

Students will describe features shown on topographic maps as they plan a route for a bicycle race around the school neighborhood. First, they will create clay mountains and learn how to make topographic maps of their landforms. Then they will interpret topographic maps made by other students in the class to match each mountain to its map. Finally, they will use topographic maps of the school campus to plan an exciting but safe bike race route. This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to physical and geographic features of the Great Lakes, including the size, area, amount of water, and locations of each, as well as the significance of the Great Lakes to many aspects of life for the region in which they are located.

Celestial navigation is the art and science of finding one's geographic position by means of astronomical observations, particularly by measuring altitudes of celestial objects sun, moon, planets or stars. This activity starts with a basic, but very important and useful, celestial measurement: measuring the altitude of Polaris (the North Star) or measuring the latitude.

Students create and use their own simple compasses, which are each made from a bowl of water, strong magnet, stick pin and Styrofoam peanuts. They learn how compasses work and about cardinal directions. They come to understand that the Earth's magnetic field has both horizontal and vertical components.