BeeVisit enables students to evaluate the relative contributions of different pollinator species to a plant's reproductive success through an interactive model of pollen transfer.

The model tracks a plant's presentation of pollen through time; pollen may be presented gradually or all at once, and the program lets you choose from a family of power curves to model the shape of the cumulative pollen presentation curve over a set number of time intervals (usually 100). Then, 'bees' of 1, 2, or 3 types are allowed to visit the plant.

You specify the expected number and type of visits; this sets the probability of a visit occurring during each interval, and visits occur stochastically according to these probabilities.

This module presents an overview of Brownian motion, with a focus on how it relates to nanotechnology. It looks at Brownian motion from a historical, physical, mathematical, and biological perspective in order to give the reader a complete view of this phenomenon.

In this video segment from Nature, scientists work to discover why bees are disappearing.

The Developmental Selection module is a research simulation that allows students to investigate the possible causes of incomplete embryo development in perennial legume fruits.

Two competing hypotheses are proposed to explain patterns of seed abortion - the pollen tube competition hypothesis and the maternal resource limitation hypotheses. Students can explore these competing hypotheses by setting up experimental problems and then collecting and analyzing their data.

The Developmental Selection interface includes three sliders that the student can control to influence seed abortion rates (Seed/Ovule Ratio) and the relative influence of pollen tube competition (PTC) and maternal resource limitation (MRL).

Other interfaces emphasize data collection, data analysis and a summary of observations.

In this photograph from Oxford Scientific Films, a horned bee attempts to mate with an Ophrys orchid, which has evolved to resemble a female bee.

Palynology research scientists from around the world contribute pollen data to the NOAA Paleoclimatology World Data Center (WDC). There are pollen counts, related information, and various derived data sets. Users can access or contribute data. There are several links on obtaining WDC data, other data archives, software (including Tilia and PALYHELP), and other paleoclimatology, climatology, and botany sites.

This site provides access to a spectrum of web-based visual resources and supporting material that can be used to teach students about paleoclimate through geologic time. Visualizations include simple animations, GIS-based animated maps and paleogeographic maps, as well as numerous illustrations and photos. Resources can be integrated into lectures, labs, classes, or other activities about paleoclimate and land cover and land use change over time.

A guide to phenological monitoring for students, teachers, families, and nature enthusiasts.

Phenology is the observation and measurement of events in time. The passing of the seasons is one of the most familiar phenomena on Earth. Consider, for example, the onset of spring in temperate climates. As winter ends, our surroundings burst with new life — forest canopies fill with vibrant greens, flocks of birds migrate in formation to northern breeding grounds, and brilliant wildflowers and their insect pollinators appear in rapid succession across hillsides, roadsides, lake margins, and fields. Similarly, as autumn approaches, the deciduous forest canopy progresses towards a colorful demise, birds navigate their return to southern wintering grounds, and many plants ripen their last fruits before the onset of winter. 6.3 MB PDF.

The article gives a good introduction to how scientists are using plant data to study the effects of climate change.

This online article, from Biodiversity Counts, offers insight into how plants interact with arthropods. It has: an explanation of the difference between detrimental and mutually beneficial relationships; some of the chemical and mechanical modifications plants have made to attract helpful arthropods and fend off harmful ones; a detailed overview of pollination, with descriptions of seven common pollination syndromes; a detailed overview of plant defense mechanisms; and a series of questions students can ask when they see an arthropod on a plant in order to learn more about how the two are interacting.

This activity visits the Japanese Weather Site that uses pollen monitoring robots as part of a remote sensing system in Japan. The robots collect current pollen counts in Japan.

This site has a list of pollen resources from a collaborative teacher workshop.

Using Pollen Viewer, an interactive animation tool that shows pollen counts over the past 21,000 years in North America, this activity investigates how grass pollen counts have changed over time.

Research how plants in your area can be used to indicate climate change. Project BudBurst is a U.S. field study campaign that engages citizen scientists in making careful observations of the phenological events such as first leafing, first flower, and first fruit ripening of a diversity of trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses in their local area.
Resources include K-12 Teacher Guide and Student Data Collection Sheet

Students explore pollination using two exercises: an ant- and a butterfly-activity. In the ant-exercise, students generate hypotheses for why reports of ant pollination are rare, test one or more hypothesis, and present their findings. In addition to this open-ended inquiry investigation, instructions are also provided for a structured activity in which students germinate pollen and test whether ant-secretions inhibit pollen growth as has been proposed in the scientific literature. In the butterfly-exercise, students test whether butterflies can learn to associate certain color cues with a sugar reward.

This mirror site for NOAA's World Data Center (WDC) for Paleoclimatology offers Java applets on annual records of tropical systems (ARTS) and WDC data on coral, sclerosponge, ice core, plant microfossil, pollen, and tree rings. Each animation displays summary information (e.g., site name, investigator, latitude, longitude (in decimal degrees), place, altitude, the number of samples, variables, radiocarbon dates, species, date ranges, etc.); as well as the publications associated with the site; diagrams or plots.

Students are introduced to the concepts of air pollution and air quality. The three lesson parts focus on the prerequisites for understanding air pollution. First, students use M&Ms to create a pie graph that expresses their understanding of the composition of air. Next, students watch and conduct several simple experiments to develop an understanding of the properties of air (it has mass, it takes up space, it can move, it exerts pressure, it can do work). Finally, students develop awareness and understanding of the daily air quality using the Air Quality Index (AQI) listed in the newspaper. In an associated literacy activity, students explore the environmental history timeline.