What does climate change mean for the species that live in Wisconsin waters?

The streams of the Driftless region are where you’ll find the trout that fly fishers are after. With changes to the frequency of extreme weather events, water temperatures, and plant cover from predators, come stresses to the trout, impacting their survival and that of fly fishing in the region. Wade into the story of one fly fishing guide’s experience to learn more about what’s happening and what’s at stake.

This resource is part of Climate Wisconsin, a collection of educational media resources for middle and high school classrooms from PBS Wisconsin Education.

This unit includes five nature journaling experiences implemented at High Marq Environmental Charter School during the 2021-22 school year. They are a bit of a grab bag in terms of subject and skills focus, but all included practices from How to Teach Nature Journaling by Emilie Lygren and John Muir Laws. Please Remix this template for your purposes.

Why might less ice on the lakes, for less time, be a problem?
Wisconsin winters are often thought of as long and cold, but for those who love ice fishing, those cold temperatures mean they’ll have the ice cover needed to fish on the lakes. As conditions change, ice cover and the ice fishing season are changing too, and people are noticing. Hear from two ice fishing enthusiasts about their experiences heading out on the lakes to fish.

This resource is part of Climate Wisconsin, a collection of educational media resources for middle and high school classrooms from PBS Wisconsin Education.

Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe School has an annual sugarbush within a few miles of the school.  During the Spring sugarbush season, students are bussed to the site, by class, to do the variety of daily tasks required to successfully produce maple syrup.  The LCO middle school students follow the Ojibwe traditions.  They hear the traditional stories, learn words and phrases in the Ojibwemowin language, tap trees, collect and boil sap, chop wood and build fires. The students learn about tree identification, photosynthesis, and aging trees using cross sections.  They also learn about the importance and uses of Maple trees.  The students learn that the environmental conditions needed to make maple syrup are only found in a very small part of the world that includes Wisconsin.  The combination of hands-on exploration and culturally - relevant texts personalize the learning experience for this region.   

he LEAF Wisconsin K-12 Forestry Lesson Guide includes complete interdisciplinary units for teaching students about forests and forestry in Wisconsin.
Subject areas addressed in the lessons include Arts, English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. The Wisconsin Model Academic Standards and H. Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory were referenced during the development of the guide. The LEAF Lesson Guide is based on principles outlined in the LEAF Conceptual Guide To K-12 Forestry Education in Wisconsin.

Unit-Based Lessons The unit-based lessons are divided by grade levels: K-1, 2-3, 4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9-12. Lessons build upon one another to provide connectivity in the students' educational experience. When taught as a unit, these lessons provide students a well-rounded understanding of forestry in Wisconsin. You may find that they are also effective when taught individually and integrated with other classroom material. Each lesson includes an introduction, step-by-step procedure for activities, and a conclusion. Formative assessment is woven throughout each lesson. Questions with answers are provided to help teachers follow the level of understanding of students. Summative assessment ideas are listed at the end of each lesson. Suggested activities have students apply what they have learned in a new way.

Unit Title: Near Nature Exploration Developed by Tiffany Lodholz, High Marq Environmental Charter School Grade Level:6-12 Content Area(s): Environmental Science, Science, ELAOver the course of a semester students in grades 6-12 engaged in various nature journaling activities that allowed them to connect, explore, and engage with the environment around them. Students participated in monthly phenological observations, discovered ways to use nature journaling for scientific study, and developed new techniques for looking closer and making deeper, more meaningful observations.A series of five outdoor nature journaling lessons are described:Qualitative PhenologyNature JournalingSAUNTERBug RadnessFrog Fest!

This unit is designed around providing student choice. There will be 5 novels for students to choose from: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, Refugee by Alan Gratz, Zeros by Scott Westerfeld, The Martian by Andy Weir, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Each novel focuses on the central theme of survival. Students will read and meet weekly for 8 weeks. Each week the novel groups will be given specific discussion questions and tasks that are aligned with Wisconsin ELA standards and Wisconsin Standards for Environmental Literacy & Sustainability.

Plastic bottles are everywhere! About 70% of the plastic water bottles bought in the U.S. are not recycled, and end up in the oceans. It seems obvious that using fewer plastic water bottles would be a good thing for our environment, but sometimes the alternatives can have negative consequences. Do the costs of banning plastic bottles outweigh the benefits?