This course is assembled from UC-approved college preparatory courses and is designed to acquaint students with the physical, ecological, social, and political principles of environmental science. The scientific method is used to analyze and understand the inter-relationships between humans and the natural environment. The course shows how ecological realities and the material desires of humans often clash, leading to environmental degradation and pollution. The course covers: Earth's Systems, Human Population Dynamics, Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, Global Changes, and Environment and Society.

Green plants make their own food by a process called photosynthesis. They also use nutrients and water from the soil to grow. Primary consumers (insects, chipmunks, mice and deer) eat green plants.

This is a a free university web-course module which focuses on the largest single contributor to the global ecological footprint: energy. The Ecological Footprint is a powerful tool for introducing the concept of sustainability to students. The module is designed to teach college students and resource management professionals how to calculate the ecological footprint of energy use and the carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

This site teaches students about access to water in Kenya, Ghana, and their own community as they read stories by Peace Corps Volunteers.

Developed for the second grade. A biodome is a self-sustaining habitat for plants. Students will make a biodome in a recycled soda bottle and watch as their seeds grow. Students will observe and understand how the water in the biodome continues to recycle itself through condensation and evaporation.

Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

In the exploration of ways to use solar energy, students investigate the thermal energy storage capacities of different test materials to determine which to use in passive solar building design.

This lesson is to demonstrate which organisms feed on one another and how food webs are created.

This unit explores the issue of energy production as a pressing global issue and how nanoscience could enable important breakthroughs in energy generation and conversion. In particular, traditional and newer "nano" solar technologies are introduced and explored. Upon completing this unit, students will understand: Clean alternative energy technologies must be developed to provide sufficient energy to meet growing global demand, and must be sustainable both environmentally and economically; Nanoscience could enable important breakthroughs in solar energy technology through low cost, novel energy conversion mechanisms; Surface area to volume ratio is a function of particle size and shape. Increasing surface area normally increases the rate of reaction because there are more sites available for simultaneous reaction; Energy is neither created nor destroyed--it can only be converted into different forms. Length: 2 lessons, up to 3 50-minute classroom periods if all lessons are used. Not all lessons are required. Use the lessons most appropriate for your students.

For this activity, students will be given a set of materials: cardboard, a set of insulating materials (i.e. foam, newspaper, etc.), aluminum foil, and plexiglass. Students will then become engineers in building a solar oven from the given materials, keeping in mind that the oven should not only be able to collect as much of the sun's energy as possible but also to store it. Students will experiment with heat transfer through conduction by how well the oven is insulated and radiation by how well it absorbs solar radiation. Upon completion they will test the effectiveness of their designs both qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively, they will attempt to actually bake something in the ovens. Quantitatively, they will take periodic temperature measurements and plot a temperature versus time graph. Afterwards, students will think like engineers and discuss the solar oven's strengths and weaknesses when compared to a conventional oven.

In this segment from Curious, learn about creating energy from solar rays to meet the growing energy needs of the world.

This site teaches kids about the importance of safe drinking water through teaching and learning resources such as an activity on how to build your own aquifer, experiments on the water treatment process, and the drinking water art project.

This unit is appropriate for fifth grade students. In the following unit, students will learn about organisms, populations, communities, living and non-living factors in an ecosystem, predators, prey, adaptations, producers, consumers, decomposers, food webs, and food chains.

Several activities are included to teach and research the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources and various energy resources. The students work with a quantitative, but simple model of energy resources to show how rapidly a finite, non-renewable energy sources can be depleted, whereas renewable resources continue to be available. The students then complete a homework assignment or a longer, in-depth research project to learn about how various technologies that capture energy resources for human uses and their pros and cons. Fact sheets are included to help students get started on their investigation of their assigned energy source.

This course looks at all forms that energy exists. It explains how energy is used in: transport, agriculture, industry, commerce and households. It describes how energy is stored using storage systems such as: battery, flywheels, compressed air, chemical energy systems and pumped storage. This course explains the problem of depletion of energy resources. It describes the environmental damage associated with the use of fossil fuels, acid rains, dangers posed by leaded fuels, oil spills, gas leaks and explosions, water pollution caused by poorly managed coal mines, and air pollution. It describes the environmental damage associated with the use of fuelwood, uranium, hydro-power plants and wind. It also explains possible solutions to the energy-related problems.

Through numerous lessons and hands-on activities, students are introduced to the concept of an environment and the interactions within it. As they learn about natural and manmade environments, and renewable and non-renewable natural resources, they see how people use our natural resources and the many environmental issues in our world today. Students learn about solid waste and disposal, and its effects on our environment. They learn the importance of the concepts of reduce, reuse, recycle and compost in our everyday lives. Students explore the causes and effects of water pollution and the importance of water treatment and clean-up methods. They learn about air pollution and air quality, and the many engineering technologies to prevent it and clean it up. Students also address land use and community planning, seeing how decisions made by people have a long-term impact on our natural world. Students explore our renewable energy sources, seeing how solar, water and wind energy can be transformed into electricity. Students are also introduced to environmental engineering careers and their roles in our society.

This unit provides students the opportunity to explore methods engineers have devised for harnessing sunlight to generate power. Students will initially explore heat transfer and heat storage through the construction, testing, and eventual use of a solar oven. With a lesson focused on photovoltaic cells, students will learn the concepts of energy conversion, conservation of energy, current, and voltage. Through construction of model solar powered cars, students can see these conceptual ideas manifested in modern technology. Furthermore, the solar car project provides opportunities to explore a number of other topics, such as gear ratios and simple mechanics. Both of these design and construction projects are examples of engineering design.

A producer is an organism that produces its own food for energy use. Producers often accomplish this by using photosynthesis if they are plants. Producers provide food and energy for consumers, or organisms that cannot make their own food.

This is an article from "Teachable Moments in the News," a newsletter that takes recent Earth and space science related news stories and places them in a context relevant to the science curriculum. This particular edition describes the Goldilocks Zone, a range of environmental conditions that can support life. Teachers are provided a brief introduction, relevant news links, and developed lesson plans. Some lessons are in PDF format. Activity themes include: exploration of environmental conditions necessary to sustain life, physical and behavioral adaptations of organisms, and identification of resources on Earth that are essential for life to thrive.

Students learn about energy flow in food webs, including the roles of the sun, producers, consumers and decomposers in the energy cycle. They model a food web and create diagrams of food webs using their own drawings and/or images from nature or wildlife magazines. Students investigate the links between the sun, plants and animals, building their understanding of the web of nutrient dependency and energy transfer.