Structure and Parts of a Tree
(View Complete Item Description)This technology education lesson will introduce the students to trees, its structure and parts.
Material Type: Lesson
All resources in Environmental Literacy and Sustainability
Biomes and Population Dynamics - Balance within Natural Systems
(View Complete Item Description)With a continued focus on the Sonoran Desert, students are introduced to the concepts of biomes, limiting factors (resources), carrying capacity and growth curves through a PowerPoint® presentation. Abiotic factors (temperature, annual precipitation, seasons, etc.) determine the biome landscape. The vegetative component, as producers, determines the types of consumers that form its various communities. Students learn how the type and quantity of available resources defines how many organisms can be supported within the community, as well as its particular resident species. Students use mathematical models of natural relationships (in this case, sigmoid and exponential growth curves) to analyze population information and build upon it. With this understanding, students are able to explain how carrying capacity is determined by the limiting factors within the community and feeding relationships. By studying these ecological relationships, students see the connection between ecological relationships of organisms and the fundamentals of engineering design, adding to their base of knowledge towards solving the grand challenge posed in this unit.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Technology and Nature in American History, Spring 2008
(View Complete Item Description)Subject considers how the visual and material world of "nature" has been reshaped by industrial practices, beliefs, structures, and activities. Readings in historical geography, aesthetics, American history, environmental and ecological history, architecture, city planning, and landscape studies. Several field trips planned to visit local industrial landscapes. Assignments involve weekly short, written responses to the readings, and discussion-leading. Final project is a photo-essay on the student's choice of industrial site (photographic experience not necessary).
Material Type: Full Course
Biomimicry: Echolocation in Robotics
(View Complete Item Description)Students use ultrasonic sensors and LEGO© MINDSTORMS© NXT robots to emulate how bats use echolocation to detect obstacles. They measure the robot's reaction times as it senses objects at two distances and with different sensor threshold values, and again after making adjustments to optimize its effectiveness. Like engineers, they gather and graph data to analyze a given design (from the tutorial) and make modifications to the sensor placement and/or threshold values in order to improve the robot's performance (iterative design). Students see how problem solving with biomimicry design is directly related to understanding and making observations of nature.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Build a Birdhouse
(View Complete Item Description)Students construct bird nests and birdhouses. They research birds of their choosing and then design houses that meet the birds' specific needs. It works well to conduct this activity in conjunction with a grades 9-12 woodshop class by partnering the older students with the younger students (but it is not required to do this in order to conduct the activity).
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Life Cycles
(View Complete Item Description)In this lesson, students will extend their knowledge of matter and energy cycles in an organism to engineering life cycle assessment of a product. Students will learn about product life cycle assessment and the flow of energy through the cycle, comparing it to the flow of nutrients and energy in the life cycle of an organism.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
5th Grade Rain Garden Design Challenge Handouts
(View Complete Item Description)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.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Formative Assessment, Interim/Summative Assessment, Learning Task, Lesson Plan, Reference Material, Rubric/Scoring Guide, Unit of Study
5th Grade Rain Garden Design Challenge Lesson Plan
(View Complete Item Description)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.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Formative Assessment, Interim/Summative Assessment, Lesson Plan, Rubric/Scoring Guide, Unit of Study
BioBlitz: A Spark for Civic Engagement
(View Complete Item Description)The resources and project outline are the collaborative efforts of the Chain Exploration Center Grades 5 & 6 teachers and a FIELD Edventures educator. The goals of the project were for students to take civic action on environmental issues of local importance. Additionally, the teachers wanted students to become familiar with the four habitat areas, and observable species present in each area. It was decided that conducting a bioblitz across 4 days–one in each area–would provide students with data that would be the basis for individual and small group investigative questions, issue definition and investigation, and a proposal for conservation, protection, and/or restoration of natural resources, habitats, or species of Wisconsin. Students then presented their proposals to their state senator in a visit to the Wisconsin State Capitol.
Material Type: Unit of Study
Christmas Bird Count
(View Complete Item Description)A pdf file that contains slides with visuals to be shown. It explains the CBC from its beginning to end with an example of Data taken from our local bird count. Students will be instructed to build a data table and graph representing data. Then draw conclusions.
Material Type: Data Set, Lecture Notes
Extinction of Passenger Pigeons
(View Complete Item Description)Students learn about the impacts of humans on the enviroment. Â Students will read an article about the overharvesting of pigeons. They will also participate in a simplified simulation of how hunting contributed to passenger pigeon decline and eventual extinction.
Material Type: Lesson
Women in Natural Resources - Amanda Kretschmer
(View Complete Item Description)In this video, we interview Amanda Kretschmer, Brown County DNR Warden
Material Type: Other
Women in Ag/Forestry - Amy Morales
(View Complete Item Description)Non-traditional Occupations - In this video, we'll interview Amy Morales, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Liaison Forester.
Material Type: Other
Gaylord Nelson: A Vision for the Earth | Wisconsin Biographies
(View Complete Item Description)From outdoor adventures in Clear Lake, to representing his community and his state in government, this down-to-earth visionary always kept his eyes on the environment to make a better world for us all. Resources available for exploring this story include: - A short animated video with captions and transcripts in English and Spanish - A short biography book accessible as a slide deck, with per-page audio for listening along, and maps of key locations in the story - Questions that can be used for conversation, reflection, and connection with the story - A historical image gallery full of primary and secondary sources to explore - A guide for activating the media with learners that includes story stats, extension activity ideas, and standards supported This story is part of Wisconsin Biographies, a collection of educational media resources for grades 3-6. Explore the full collection at pbswisconsineducation.org/biographies/about.
Material Type: Other
Citizen Science Central
(View Complete Item Description)This site is a gateway to projects involving public participants in real-world research, with hopes of fostering connections for sharing ideas and resources.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Case Study, Diagram/Illustration, Game, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study
Citizen Science with Zooniverse
(View Complete Item Description)Students learn that ordinary citizens, including students like themselves, can make meaningful contributions to science through the concept of "citizen science." First, students learn some examples of ongoing citizen science projects that are common around the world, such as medical research, medication testing and donating idle computer time to perform scientific calculations. Then they explore Zooniverse, an interactive website that shows how research in areas from marine biology to astronomy leverage the power of the Internet to use the assistance of non-scientists to classify large amounts of data that is unclassifiable by machines for various reasons. To conclude, student groups act as engineering teams to brainstorm projects ideas for their own town that could benefit from community help, then design conceptual interactive websites that could organize and support the projects.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Project FeederWatch: Integrating Real-Time Science and Math
(View Complete Item Description)This article discusses Project FeederWatch, a real-time citizen science project, and how elementary teachers can use this bird data to integrate math lessons and concepts.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Old Weather: Our Weather's Past, The Climate's Future
(View Complete Item Description)Help scientists recover worldwide weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I. These transcriptions will contribute to climate model projections and improve a database of weather extremes. Historians will use your work to track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.
Material Type: Interactive
The Impact of Culture on Connecting to the Environment
(View Complete Item Description)Developing environmentally literate citizens is the primary goal of environmental science. One of the four components of environmental literacy is "connecting to nature". Culture plays a key role in the way individuals connect to their environment. Understanding culture also supports the development of a culturally responsive classroom and helps students develop an understanding of environmental justice, another key concept of environmental science. This lesson helps students explore their own culture and compare and contrast it with other cultures.
Material Type: Interactive, Learning Task, Lesson Plan
Kids Becoming Scientists through Schoolyard Inquiry
(View Complete Item Description)This article provides an overview of scientific inquiry and how citizen science programs run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology provide opportunities for inquiry about birds.
Material Type: Lesson Plan