In this 6th grade Science class, students learn how to build a compost pile, learn about organisms needed for decomposition, and begin to understand the purpose of compost in the garden.

In this 6th grade Science class, students learn how to build a compost pile, learn about organisms needed for decomposition, and begin to understand the purpose of compost in the garden.

Students learn about energy and nutrient flow in various biosphere climates and environments. They learn about herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, food chains and food webs, seeing the interdependence between producers, consumers and decomposers. Students are introduced to the roles of the hydrologic (water), carbon, and nitrogen cycles in sustaining the worlds' ecosystems so living organisms survive. This lesson is part of a series of six lessons in which students use their growing understanding of various environments and the engineering design process, to design and create their own model biodome ecosystems.

Students conduct experiments to determine what environmental factors favor decomposition by soil microbes. They use chunks of carrots for the materials to be decomposed, and their experiments are carried out in plastic bags filled with dirt. Every few days students remove the carrots from the dirt and weigh them. Depending on the experimental conditions, after a few weeks most of the carrots have decomposed completely.

6.0001 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python is intended for students with little or no programming experience. It aims to provide students with an understanding of the role computation can play in solving problems and to help students, regardless of their major, feel justifiably confident of their ability to write small programs that allow them to accomplish useful goals. The class uses the Python 3.5 programming language.

Students observe the decomposition of a pumpkin under controlled circumstances. These observations are used to take notes and develop questions.

The purpose of this lesson plan is to learn about the process and importance of decomposition while creating actual compost.

In this lesson students will use their knowledge of decimals to solve problems in a real- world setting.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Rising sea levels are the catastrophic image of global warming But the threat of melting ice at high latitudes goes much deeper Locked within the frozen soil in these regions are vast pools of prehistoric carbon Once freed, this carbon has the potential to accelerate the current rate at which the earth is heating up thanks in large part to microbes in the soil A new study shows that 5 years’ worth of warming is enough to seriously alter communities of bacteria priming them to convert newly thawed carbon into greenhouse gases like methane Experiments in Alaska revealed dramatic changes to the composition and functional structure of microbial communities which suggested an evolving sensitivity to warming over time The findings contrast those obtained from a similar experiment conducted over only 1..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

In the Voting Rights and Voter ID Laws lesson, students interview family members or neighbors about their experiences voting, and then analyze real footage from polling locations in neighborhoods around the country. Students then learn about the history of voting rights in the United States, drilling deep into the modern controversies around Voter ID laws. Part of this lesson leverages materials from a great PBS lesson plan.