These handouts accompany the 5th Grade Rain Garden Design Challenge Lesson Plan. The handouts give criteria for identifying areas of erosion and non-point source pollution entering waterways on school property, slope and soil suitability criteria for situating the rain garden, and data collection procedures for phosphate testing. The handouts also include guidelines and criteria for the final poster presentation design and Claim-Evidence-Reasoning, as well as rubrics for scoring and guidelines for peer feedback.

This lesson engages 5th grade students in identifying areas of erosion and non-point source pollution entering waterways on school property, making a claim on the most suitable site to locate a rain garden by conducting field tests on slope and soil type, and testing
for the presence of phosphates in waterways on school forest property. Students then compete in a rain garden design challenge using their data to create a poster presentation, including a map and claim evidence reasoning, for the best rain garden design plan, scored using a rubric.

In this video, NOAA's Deke Arndt, Chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at the National Climatic Data Center, recaps the temperature and precipitation data for the continental US in summer 2012. It describes how these conditions have led to drought and reduced crop yields.

This video examines what will happen to crops as Earth's temperature rises and soils dry out because of changing climate.

This activity addresses climate change impacts that affect all states that are part of the Colorado River Basin and are dependent on its water. Students examine available data, the possible consequences of changes to various user groups, and suggest solutions to adapt to these changes.

This lab activity allows students to indetify macroinvertebrates and determine the health of an acquatic ecosystem.

This activity is a field investigation where students will observe three areas with high sensitivity to pollution, and test water quality in two of the locations.

This series of visualizations is part of a rich multi-agency effort to showcase the usefulness of open data (i.e., data provided in a discoverable, sharable, and machine-readable format) by exploring the 16-year drought as of 2016 and its effects on the Colorado River Basin.

This activity is a bioassay lab where students tested the effect of an environmental toxin (fertilizer) on the growth rate of Duckweed.

Using US Drought Monitor data and its classification system, this interactive tool tracks drought in the continental US by county, from 2000 to the present.

This activity is an interactive lecture, where students will learn that fresh water is a limited resource. They will also see that drinkable water is not distributed evenly over the earth.

This activity is a mock investigation into different macroinvertebrates found in the streams in your local city. Students will record and analyze data that will lead them to learn if the water quality is good or bad in their backyard.

This activity is a self-created lab investigation where students gather data on acid and its affects on seed germination.

This 3-part lesson begins with a field activity beside a lake or stream where students collect and identify macro invertebrates. During the second and third portions of the lesson, students conduct research to answer questions that they have regarding the macro invertebrates that they have identified and then based on the types of macro invertebrates found make a general determination of the cleanliness of the lake.

This activity is a field investigation where students gather data on ponds and compare the results to determine the quality of the water.

In activity is a Biology field lab where students will investigate the relative health of an aquatic system based on bioindicators. Students will then summarize and reflect upon their findings.

In this investigation, students gather biotic and abiotic data and samples in the field, develop an experiment to test another abiotic factor in the lab, synthesize group data, interpret their findings and make a claim on the health of the wetland ecosystem.

This activity is a field investigation where students collect and design an experiment to identify the water quality of a section of the North Branch of the Root River in Lanesboro, MN. The investigation is done in collaboration with Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center.

This short video illustrates how warming ocean temperature is a major factor in climate change, particularly the increase in severity of extreme weather (notably storms and drought).