AH-CHOO! A Case Study on Climate Change and Allergies

You work for ScienceSpeak, a public relations firm that educates the public about scientific issues. Your company has won a contract with the World Health Organization (WHO) to supply materials for their new multimedia public health campaign about climate change. The WHO is specifically interested in the relationship between climate change and the increasing prevalence of allergies and asthma worldwide. Your boss calls a meeting to discuss the contract. She gives you a set of Data Tables prepared for you by two expert scientists that summarize recent evidence on the effects of increasing carbon dioxide and temperature on allergenic plants. Your job is to design and produce a communication product such as a brochure, poster, web page, or television program that informs the public about potential links between climate change and allergies.

Material Type: Interim/Summative Assessment, Lesson Plan, Rubric/Scoring Guide

Animal Classification

This is a resource to classify different animal species.  See pictures and facts about animals around the world.  Search specific landscapes and animal types.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Learning Task, Reading, Reference Material

Bird Island: What is Biodiversity?

Through spatial and graphical analysis of bird populations on a fictional island, students learn the meaning of biodiversity, species richness, endemism, and abundance. With the teacher acting as a facilitator, students use an interactive PDF map to explore various ways to represent and compare biodiversity across ecoregions. Students manipulate information layers to identify, describe, compare and graph bird distribution patterns in the island's different ecoregions. Rather than being given a list of vocabulary words, students grapple with the material to discover the meaning of these words and concepts. Through this experiential process, they combine the newly acquired terminology with complementary skills to evaluate and communicate their findings on bird biodiversity. This lesson prepares students for the more complex use of spatial and graphical analysis in our GIS-based Amazon unit.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Climate Expert Richard Alley

Climate expert Richard Alley of Penn State adds perspective on how our activities can make a difference as our planet warms.

Material Type: Lesson

Connect,

This template is to be used in the Connect, Explore, Engage professional learning series. Sign into WISELearn to create your own copy of this resource and update the template and this abstract.

Material Type: Unit of Study

Authors: Sandy Benton, Hannah Coddington

Dr. Carter discusses enabling discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy

Professor Carter is a theorist/computational scientist first known for her research combining ab initio quantum chemistry with dynamics and kinetics, especially as applied to surface chemistry. Her research into how materials fail due to chemical and mechanical effects led to new insights into how to optimally protect these materials against failure. Her current research is focused entirely on enabling discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy.

Material Type: Lesson

Drinking Water Treatment 1 - Technology

The course provides the technological background of treatment processes applied for production of drinking water. Treatment processes are demonstrated with laboratory experiments.

Material Type: Full Course, Lecture Notes, Reading

Author: J.C. van Dijk

Endangered Species

This website is a list of threatened & endangered species of Wisconsin.  You will be able to determine how to identify these species and find out about their habitat, breeding, and sounds.

Material Type: Reading, Reference Material

Engineering a Difference

Engineering a Difference follows three teams of engineering students and professional engineers as they work with communities in Ghana, Kenya and Nicaragua to build critical infrastructure. Together, they develop a clean water supply, electricity and a bridge to help these isolated communities thrive. Here are colorful, compelling stories of how engineers make the world a better place.

Material Type: Lesson

Environmental Preservation in the Progressive Era

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.

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Ella Howard

Field Day Lab

Are you a dreamer, risk-taker, and experimental mess-maker? Are you interested in new media and how technology can transform learning experiences? If so, we want to talk with you! Visit our website to learn more about the workshops, free educational tools, and teacher fellowships we provide.

Material Type: Other

Forests Are Always Changing

In this lesson, students simulate forest succession and disturbances by role-playing trees. Using calculations, students discover how forests are renewable resources.

Material Type: Game, Interactive, Learning Task, Simulation, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Fourth Grade Maple Syrup WISE Learn Unit

Students develop an understanding of the maple syrup process from tapping trees to evaporating sap through hands-on experiences.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Formative Assessment, Learning Task, Lesson, Other, Reference Material, Unit of Study

Author: Amy Bass & Tara Nelson

GETTING TO THE CORE: THE LINK BETWEEN TEMPERATURE AND CARBON DIOXIDE

This lesson plan gives students first-hand experience in analyzing the link between atmospheric temperatures and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations by looking at ice core data spanning hundreds of thousands of years.

Material Type: Learning Task, Lesson Plan

GeoClimate: Probing Earth's Deep-Time Climate Archives

GeoClimate is a developing community-based initiative that focuses on the importance of "deep time" for understanding today's climate and climate change. Earth's climate system operates on a continuum of temporal, spatial, and parametric scales. The deep-time geologic record preserves numerous examples of past climate transitions between states more extreme than those recorded in instrumental data, in historical records, or even in Quaternary archives. Critically, some of these transitions show evidence of having been abrupt--a major societal concern in light of the large changes currently occurring in atmospheric CO2 levels, which have now moved beyond the envelope of Quaternary variation, and into the realm of deep time. In this regard, an understanding of the details of large-scale transitions in deep time, and the processes involved in them, is critical to an informed assessment of future climate change.

Material Type: Lesson

Go with the Flow

This Elaborate session allows students to apply what they have learned to new situations. In this session students participate in a selection of activities that focus on science process skills and content understanding. To complete the session, students work independently or with peers to complete an offline activity that reinforces science process skills.

Material Type: Interactive, Learning Task

How Wolves Change Rivers

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers?  Students will watch this video as an example for how populations can change an ecosystem.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration

Infiniscope Homepage

FREE to access discussion forums, events, professional development, and more digital content. Learn to create your own digital learning experiences using NASA visualizations and connect with educators.

Material Type: Lesson

Authors: Debbie Morgan, Diane Ripollone, Elizabeth Sebastian, Helen Coyle, Maki Fullerton, Siobhan Sackey

Lizard Evolution Virtual Lab

The virtual lab includes four modules that investigate different concepts in evolutionary biology, including adaptation, convergent evolution, phylogenetic analysis, reproductive isolation, and speciation. Each module involves data collection, calculations, analysis and answering questions. The “Educators” tab includes lists of key concepts and learning objectives and detailed suggestions for incorporating the lab in your instruction. It is appropriate for students in high school biology and environmental science classes, and undergraduate biology, ecology, environmental science courses. The focus on observation, measurement, and experimental methods makes the lab a good fit for addressing "science as a process" or "nature of science" aspects of the curriculum. The emphasis on the collection, analysis, and graphing of data, connects to the mathematical dimension of biology and general goals of STEM integration.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Reading, Simulation

NSF Green Gasoline Briefing

On Sept. 23, 2008, three leading experts from academia and industry hosted a panel discussion at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to highlight how far researchers have come, and how far they still need to go, to bring plant-derived gasoline to market. This is the webcast of the green gasoline briefing.

Material Type: Lesson