This lesson is a classroom activity where students learn to use their balance knowledge to create a beautiful mobile.

Problem based accounting learning activity for notes and interest payable, sales tax payable, and payroll.

This interdisciplinary course is a real-world collaborative multi-year project that connects various departments, courses, and independent study projects on a college campus. Using the client/consultant model, students from several departments and a wide range of environmental backgrounds come together to explore the design of an efficient future student house on campus. Over a couple of years, students research and test building designs, energy for heating and power, natural flows of available energy, natural ecosystem processes including living machines, and possible materials to use in the eventual construction of the eco-house. This SERC Starting Point site includes learning goals, context for use, teaching tips and materials, assessment, and references.

This semester-long project on conducting an environmental audit of a college campus can be done by an individual or by groups of students working in teams. Each group will research a different aspect of campus operations; they will collect data, analyze their findings, and make recommendations for improvements. This SERC Starting Point site includes learning goals, context for use, teaching tips and materials, assessment, and references.

The Environment and the Earth class at the University of South Carolina participated in a campus environmental service-learning project where students collected data lighting, water fixtures, recycling bins, and trash in five academic buildings.

Students study aquatic organisms in relation to the environmental conditions of lakes and streams. The course develops substantial quantities of data concerning the local watershed. This data is used by community partners in many contexts.

This course is an introduction to the aspects of marine geology and oceanography that affect the environment and marine resources. Service-learning is an essential component of how students learn about the earth. We deliver part of the content of this course by arranging for students to solve a problem with a local community partner.

This is an art project where oil paints and water is used. Students will have already explored the densities of oil and water.

Students work as a team to determine the causes, effects, and solutions to ozone depletion. They work out what they need to know, and split the team up to research different parts of the issue.

The Sarita Wetland restoration on the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus is used as teaching tools by numerous classes. Students, staff and faculty have collaborated on the planning and implementation of the project. This example highlights the restoration process, and specifically references one of the classes, the Water Quality class.

The course was a senior-level 3 credit seminar designed primarily for junior and senior economics majors and minors. This capstone-type course offered an opportunity for 18 students to learn about urban economics as it applies to local economic development while being actively involved in the actual practice of community and economic development through a partnership with Burlington's innovative Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO). Specifically, Students conducted the following activities for CEDO's economic development division: 1. Collected data to enable an up-to-date understanding of economic/demographic trends and conditions in Burlington and the region. CEDO has previously hired outside consultants to periodically produce a data rich document titled "Jobs and People." My students put together "Jobs and People IV." Key contributions unique to J&P IV were the construction of time series based on NAICS instead of SIC industry codes and the addition of variables to reflect Burlington's movement away from manufacturing to an economy based more on the arts, technology and sustainable agriculture. This report is now used throughout the state of Vermont. 2. Developed a dataset in excel with formulas and sources that makes it easy for CEDO staff to keep "Jobs and People" continuously updated and to modify the data and charts to meet their changing needs. CEDO will now need to rely less on expensive outside consultants. Students conducted the following activities for CEDO's community development division: 1. Conducted a survey of Burlington residents on their quality of life in the historical but economically challenged Old North End neighborhood. The survey was also designed to gather information about the types of supports residents want and to identify the role played by CEDO sponsored neighborhood associations in resident perceptions of quality of life.

This Starting Point Teaching Collection page describes the Yellowstone Fires module created for NASA's Classroom of the Future. Emphasizing an integrated approach to environmental earth science through problem-based learning, the module asks students to assume the role of environmental biologist, and help several government agencies resolve the debate surrounding "let it burn" policies in national parks. The government agencies would like to know whether or not to allow naturally occurring fires in Yellowstone National Park to burn to their natural conclusion. The agencies are particularly interested in student recommendations based on an Earth System Science analysis of a fire's impact on the air, land, water, and living things. Many of the pages within the module site provide hyperlinked background resources to investigate wildland fire issues in more detail. A glossary, references, related links, and a general description of the problem-based learning model compliment the site. On this page, teachers can find learning goals, teaching notes and tips, teaching materials, assessment hints and references and resources dealing with this exercise. It also describes the context in which the module is best used.