Add acidity to a healthy lake and see what happens to the plants and animals in this interactive activity adapted from EcoKids.

The Aral Sea is actually not a sea at all, but an immense fresh water lake. In the last thirty years, more than sixty percent of the lake has disappeared because much of the river flow feeding the lake was diverted to irrigate cotton fields and rice paddies. Concentrations of salts and minerals began to rise in the shrinking body of water, leading to staggering alterations in the lakes ecology and precipitous drops in the Arals fish population. Powerful winds that blow across this part of Asia routinely pick up and deposit the now exposed lake bed soil. This has contributed to a significant reduction in breathable air quality, and crop yields have been appreciably affected due to heavily salt laden particles falling on arable land. This series of Landsat images taken in 1973, 1987 and 2000 show the profound reduction in overall area at the north end of the Aral, and a commensurate increase in land area as the floor of the sea now lies exposed.

This is a unit for K-2 students on fish habitats. The last day is a field trip to a local lake.

The Great Lakes are socially, economically, and environmentally significant to the region, the nation, and the planet." This an essential principle for Great Lakes literacy. The Great Lakes Literacy Principles and Fundamental Concepts provide a framework for educators teaching about the Great Lakes, helping teachers and students think, teach and learn of the Great Lakes as a system, rather than a set of unrelated parts. Thinking systemically can provide for a greater understanding and can help provide solutions to the issues threatening the region.

Evaporation from the Great Lakes develops into clouds moving East, dropping snow as they go.

This activity is an on-line research activity in which students research different Minnesota lakes and determine their physical characteristics, chemical characteristics, and the overall health of the lake.

Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain Basin is home to 1.5 million people and an estuary ecosystem with enormous biodiversity. Activities in the educator’s guide help students in grades 5-12 gain an understanding and appreciation of the Basin and teaches them the skills to identify environmental concerns, make changes, and solve problems.

" A great variety of processes affect the surface of the Earth. Topics to be covered are production and movement of surficial materials; soils and soil erosion; precipitation; streams and lakes; groundwater flow; glaciers and their deposits. The course combines aspects of geology, climatology, hydrology, and soil science to present a coherent introduction to the surface of the Earth, with emphasis on both fundamental concepts and practical applications, as a basis for understanding and intelligent management of the Earth's physical and chemical environment."

Introduction to momentum and scalar transport in environmental flows, with emphasis given to river and lake systems. Derivation and solutions to the differential form of mass conservation equations. Topics include: molecular and turbulent diffusion, boundary layers, dissolution, phase partitioning, bed-water exchange, air-water exchange, settling and coagulation, buoyancy-driven flows, and stratification in lakes.

" This class serves as an introduction to mass transport in environmental flows, with emphasis given to river and lake systems. The class will cover the derivation and solutions to the differential form of mass conservation equations. Class topics to be covered will include: molecular and turbulent diffusion, boundary layers, dissolution, bed-water exchange, air-water exchange and particle transport."

This gallery of online resources is from the Museum's Seminars on Science, a series of distance-learning courses designed to help educators meet the new national science standards. This gallery, part of the Diversity of Fishes seminar, features two videos that both have printable PDF transcripts:About Water looks at how the water that covers two-thirds of our planet is distributed in oceans, polar caps, aquifers, rivers, and lakes. Planet Water discusses how freshwater fish which makes up one-quarter of all vertebrate biodiversity on Earth live in less than 1/100th of a percent of the planet's water.