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Botany & Art and Their Roles in Conservation
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The lessons in this issue of Smithsonian in Your Classroom introduce the work of botanists and botanical illustrators, specifically their race to make records of endangered plant species around the world. “Very little of the world’s flora has been fully studied,” says one Smithsonian botanist, “and time is running out.” In the first lesson, students gets to know six endangered plants. They examine illustrations, photographs, and dried specimens of the plants as they consider this question: If a scientist can take a picture of a plant, are there advantages in having an illustration? They go on to consider some of the big questions that botanists themselves must ask: Which of these species are most in need of conservation efforts? Are any of these plants more worth saving than others?In the second lesson, the students try their own hands at botanical illustration, following the methods of a Smithsonian staff illustrator. All that is required for the lesson are pencils, markers, tracing paper, and access to a photocopier.

Subject:
Botany
Ecology
Fine Arts
Forestry and Agriculture
Life Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Diagram/Illustration
Lecture
Lesson Plan
Reading
Unit of Study
Provider:
Smithsonian Institution
Provider Set:
Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund
Author:
Smithsonian Institute
Date Added:
01/22/2018
Botany and Art: Their Roles in Conservation
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Students are introduced to the work of botanists and botanical illustrators, and specifically to their race to make records of endangered plant species around the world. Students examine illustrations, photographs, and dried specimens of endangered plants and consider the conservation value of an illustration over a photographic image. In a second session, students try their own hands at botanical illustration and follow the methods of a Smithsonian staff illustrator. Pencils, markers, tracing paper, and access to a photocopier are required.

Subject:
Botany
Fine Arts
Life Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lecture
Lesson Plan
Provider:
Smithsonian Institution
Provider Set:
Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies
Author:
Smithsonian Institutions
Date Added:
01/22/2018
CFR InfoGuide: Deforestation in the Amazon
Only Sharing Permitted
CC BY-NC-ND
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The Council on Foreign Relation's (CFR) "Deforestation in the Amazon" InfoGuide provides a compelling look at the causes and consequences of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and is available online in English and Portuguese. CFR InfoGuides are a multimedia series to promote understanding of complex foreign policy issues.

Subject:
Civics and Government
Social Studies
Material Type:
Assessment
Case Study
Diagram/Illustration
Interactive
Module
Primary Source
Reading
Author:
Council on Foreign Relations
Date Added:
02/07/2023
Collision Lab
Unrestricted Use
CC BY
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Investigate collisions on an air hockey table. Set up your own experiments: vary the number of discs, masses and initial conditions. Is momentum conserved? Is kinetic energy conserved? Vary the elasticity and see what happens.

Subject:
Physical Science
Physics
Material Type:
Simulation
Provider:
University of Colorado Boulder
Provider Set:
PhET Interactive Simulations
Author:
Ariel Paul
Gratny, Mindy
Jon Olson
Kathy Perkins
Loeblein, Patricia
Mike Dubson
Mindy Gratny
Olson, Jon
Perkins, Kathy
PhET Interactive Simulations
Reid, Sam
Sam Reid
Trish Loeblein
Date Added:
10/01/2010
Consequences of Climate Change: Lessons about Water Availability and Extreme Weather
Conditional Remix & Share Permitted
CC BY-SA
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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.

Subject:
Ecology
Education
Forestry and Agriculture
Life Science
Mathematics
Physical Science
Physics
Material Type:
Lesson Plan
Teaching/Learning Strategy
Provider:
Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology
Provider Set:
Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle
Author:
Jessica Fries-Gaither
National Science Foundation
Date Added:
02/06/2023
"Dam Hetch Hetchy!": John Muir Contests the Hetch-Hetchy Dam
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The Progressive Era's most controversial environmental issue was the 1908-1913 struggle over federal government approval for building the Hetch Hetchy dam in a remote corner of federally-owned land in California's Yosemite National Park. The city of San Francisco, rebuilding after the devastating 1906 earthquake, believed the dam was necessary to meet its burgeoning needs for reliable supplies of water and electricity. At Congressional hearings on Hetch Hetchy held in 1913, supporters of the plan like Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief Forester of the United States and a noted environmentalist, argued that conservation of natural resources was best achieved through management of the wilderness. Preservationist and Sierra Club founder John Muir did not testify before Congress, but he argued against the Hetch Hetchy plan in this excerpt from his 1912 book, The Yosemite. In the end Congress chose management over aesthetics, voting 43-25 (with 29 abstentions) to allow the Hetch Hetchy dam on federal land.

Subject:
Social Studies
U.S. History
Material Type:
Primary Source
Reading
Provider:
American Social History Project / Center for History Media and Learning
Provider Set:
Many Pasts (CHNM/ASHP)
Author:
Center for History and New Media/American Social History Project
Date Added:
11/02/2017
Earth's Climate Changes: Virtual Bookshelf
Conditional Remix & Share Permitted
CC BY-SA
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This list of carefully selected books for grades K-5 highlights nonfiction about climate proxies, those preserved physical characteristics, such as fossils, that scientists use to reconstruct past climates. Also highlighted are a few books that provide information about two past climatic events -- the last ice age and the Dust Bowl. In each issue of the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, the virtual bookshelf recommends books that accurately portray the theme drawn from the principles of climate sciences.

Subject:
Ecology
Education
Forestry and Agriculture
Life Science
Material Type:
Teaching/Learning Strategy
Provider:
Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology
Provider Set:
Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle
Author:
Jessica Fries-Gaither
National Science Foundation
Date Added:
02/06/2023
Energy Choices Game
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Educational Use
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Use this board game to introduce the concepts of energy use in our lives and the very real impact that personal choices can have on our energy consumption, energy bills and fuel supply. The game begins as students select cards that define their modes of transportation and home design. The players roll dice and move around the board, landing on "choice" or "situation" blocks and selecting cards that describe consumer choices and real-life events that impact their energy consumption and annual energy bills. As the players pass gasoline stations or energy bill gates, they must pay annual expenses as defined by their original cards, with amounts altered by the choices they've made along the way. Gasoline cards are collected to represent total consumption. Too many gas-guzzling vehicles can result in total depletion of their gasoline supply – at which point everyone must walk or ride the bus. At the end of the game, the players count their remaining dollars to determine the winner. Discussion questions probe the students to interpret what choices they made and which situations they encountered had the most impact on their energy consumption and energy bills. All game board, card and money files are available online free of charge.

Subject:
Career and Technical Education
Environmental Science
Life Science
Technology and Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering NGSS Aligned Resources
Author:
Office of Educational Partnerships,
Susan Powers, Jan DeWaters, and a number of Clarkson and St. Lawrence students in the K-12 Project Based Learning Partnership Program
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Energy Conservation
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Educational Use
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Students are introduced to the idea that energy use impacts the environment and our wallets. They discuss different types of renewable and nonrenewable energy sources, as well as the impacts of energy consumption. Through a series of activities, students understand how they use energy and how it is transformed from one type to another. They learn innovative ways engineers conserve energy and how energy can be conserved in their homes.

Subject:
Career and Technical Education
Environmental Science
Life Science
Technology and Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering NGSS Aligned Resources
Author:
Denise W. Carlson
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Sharon D. Perez-Suarez
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection
Conditional Remix & Share Permitted
CC BY-NC-SA
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This course will covers a basic understanding and appreciation of energy efficiency and environmental concepts, basic operating principles of day-to-day energy conversion devices, various options to increase energy efficiency, ways to save energy and money, and ways to save the environment.

Subject:
Earth and Space Science
Geography
Geology
Social Studies
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Assessment
Full Course
Homework/Assignment
Lecture Notes
Reading
Syllabus
Provider:
Pennsylvania State University
Provider Set:
Penn State, College of EMS
Author:
Sarma Pisupati
Date Added:
11/09/2017
Energy Forms, States and Conversions
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Educational Use
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The students participate in many demonstrations during the first day of this lesson to learn basic concepts related to the forms and states of energy. This knowledge is then applied the second day as they assess various everyday objects to determine what forms of energy are transformed to accomplish the object's intended task. The students use block diagrams to illustrate the form and state of energy flowing into and out of the process.

Subject:
Career and Technical Education
Chemistry
Physical Science
Physics
Technology and Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Jan DeWaters
Office of Educational Partnerships,
Susan Powers
Susan Powers, Jan DeWaters, and a number of Clarkson and St. Lawrence University students in the K-12 Project Based Learning Partnership Program
TeachEngineering.org
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Environmental Preservation in the Progressive Era
Unrestricted Use
CC BY
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This collection uses primary sources to environmental preservation in the Progressive Era. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Subject:
Environmental Literacy and Sustainability
Social Studies
U.S. History
Material Type:
Primary Source
Provider:
Digital Public Library of America
Provider Set:
Primary Source Sets
Author:
Ella Howard
Date Added:
04/11/2016
Giving a Dam: Congress Debates Hetch Hetchy
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Educational Use
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The first great American conservation movement was born during the Progressive Era out of the concern that industrial growth and urban development threatened to extinguish America's wilderness. The era's most controversial environmental issue was the five-year struggle over federal approval for the flooding of a remote corner of federally-owned land in California's Yosemite National Park to build the Hetch Hetchy dam. The city of San Francisco, rebuilding after the devastating 1906 earthquake, believed the dam was necessary to meet its burgeoning needs for reliable supplies of water and electricity. In their 1913 testimony before the House Committee on Public Lands, former San Francisco Mayor James Phelan and Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief Forester of the United States and the most noted conservationist of his generation, put the utilitarian needs of San Francisco's citizens above the aesthetic and moral advantages of leaving Yosemite a pristine wilderness. In the end Congress chose management over aesthetics, voting 43-25 (with 29 abstentions) to allow the Hetch Hetchy dam on federal land.

Subject:
Social Studies
U.S. History
Material Type:
Primary Source
Reading
Provider:
American Social History Project / Center for History Media and Learning
Provider Set:
Many Pasts (CHNM/ASHP)
Author:
Center for History and New Media/American Social History Project
Date Added:
11/02/2017
Green or Gray? Choosing to Preserve Water Quality
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Educational Use
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Faced with the potential of a large expense related to water quality, the Portland (Maine) Water District performed a thorough analysis of their options. Their choice came down to making an investment in conservation or concrete.

Subject:
Earth and Space Science
Hydrology
Material Type:
Case Study
Provider:
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Provider Set:
U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit
Date Added:
08/30/2016
Household Energy Conservation and Efficiency
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Educational Use
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Students complete three different activities to evaluate the energy consumption in a household and explore potential ways to reduce that consumption. The focus is on conservation and energy efficient electrical devices and appliances. The lesson reinforces the relationship between power and energy and associated measurements and calculations required to evaluate energy consumption. The lesson provides the students with more concrete information for completing their culminating unit assignment.

Subject:
Career and Technical Education
Environmental Science
Life Science
Technology and Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering NGSS Aligned Resources
Author:
Jan DeWaters, Susan Powers, and a number of Clarkson and St. Lawrence University students in the K-12 Project Based Learning Partnership Program
Office of Educational Partnerships,
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Human Water Cycle
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Educational Use
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Students learn about the human water cycle, or how humans impact the water cycle by settling down in civilizations. Specifically, they learn how people obtain, use and dispose of water. Students also learn about shortages of treated, clean and safe water and learn about ways that engineers address this issue through water conservation and graywater recycling.

Subject:
Career and Technical Education
Earth and Space Science
Hydrology
Technology and Engineering
Material Type:
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering NGSS Aligned Resources
Author:
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Katie Spahr, Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Date Added:
09/18/2014
"I Believe in the Divinity of Labor": George Ripley Tries to Convince Ralph Waldo Emerson to Join Brook Farm, Boston, 1840
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In 1840, Unitarian minister George Ripley wrote to the Transcendentalist author Ralph Waldo Emerson in an (unsuccessful) effort to convince him to join, or at least invest in, his planned utopian community, Brook Farm. Founders of antebellum utopian communities attempted to withdraw from what they saw as the hypocrisies and excesses of partisan politics, the inequities inherent in marriage and factory work, the evils of the slave system, and the corruption of cities and to create, in small scale, a more perfect place. Brook Farm began operations in 1841 in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. The Brook farmers lived and dined communally, and divided their time between farm work and artistic and scholarly pursuits. Although other utopian communities, such as Oneida in upstate New York, and Amana, in Iowa, achieved self-sufficiency, Brook Farm ultimately failed. The community never recovered from a devastating fire in 1846, and it closed its doors in 1847.

Subject:
Social Studies
U.S. History
Material Type:
Primary Source
Reading
Provider:
American Social History Project / Center for History Media and Learning
Provider Set:
Many Pasts (CHNM/ASHP)
Author:
Center for History and New Media/American Social History Project
Date Added:
11/02/2017
Indian Trader John Lawson's Journal of Carolina, 1709
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Tragically, contact between Indians and the Europeans extended beyond just trade goods; the invasion of foreign microbes devastated Indian communities well beyond the coastal region. When John Lawson visited the Carolina interior in the 1690s, he encountered the Congaree people, whose numbers and villages had been dramatically reduced by smallpox and other diseases. In 1660, Lawson, born into a London gentry family and aspiring to a career as a natural scientist, had set sail for the Carolina colony that was founded after the restoration of the British monarchy. He traveled more than a thousand miles as an employee of the colony's proprietors, who were eager to attract additional colonists and foster economic development. Lawson's keen eye for the native and non-native people, flora, and fauna of the region was evidenced in his journal A New Voyage to Carolina, published in 1709.

Subject:
Social Studies
U.S. History
Material Type:
Primary Source
Reading
Provider:
American Social History Project / Center for History Media and Learning
Provider Set:
Many Pasts (CHNM/ASHP)
Author:
Center for History and New Media/American Social History Project
Date Added:
11/02/2017
"Kentucke, Which I Esteemed a Second Paradise:" Daniel Boone Crosses the Mountains and Visits Kentucky, 1769-71
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Educational Use
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As eighteenth-century colonists eyed the lands across the Appalachian Mountains for further settlement, they needed explorers and promoters. Daniel Boone was both. Born in Pennsylvania in 1734, he settled his family along the Yadkin River in North Carolina in 1757. A decade later he traveled across the Appalachians to explore and hunt in the rich area around the Kentucky River. Boone and his hunting partners actually shared many values with the local Indians, but the goals of natives and newcomers diverged when permanent settlement occurred. By 1775, Boone was leading settlers through the Cumberland Gap along the Wilderness Road to the stockaded settlement of Boonesborough. He described his most significant trip, which took place between 1769 and 1771, in this selection from his 1784 "autobiography." John Filson, a land speculator and author of Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke, created Boone's legend as a frontier hero by appending a ghostwritten first person narrative by Boone to his promotional tract. Soon after, Boone abandoned Kentucky because of disputed land claims; he eventually died in Missouri in 1820.

Subject:
Social Studies
U.S. History
Material Type:
Primary Source
Reading
Provider:
American Social History Project / Center for History Media and Learning
Provider Set:
Many Pasts (CHNM/ASHP)
Author:
Center for History and New Media/American Social History Project
Date Added:
11/02/2017