SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn some of the impacts climate change is having on the Arctic, hear youth perspectives about the impacts of climate change, and write their own personal climate stories.

SCIENTIST NOTES: Students are instructed in this lesson on the effects of climate change on the Arctic region. Temperature increases are hastening the melting of permafrost, glaciers, and sea level rise. This has an effect on the polar ecosystems and human populations. The contrast between how climate change affects the northern and southern regions of the Arctic is also covered in the lesson, along with suggestions for how students may learn and share their experiences to promote climate action. This lesson passed our science review process after all the materials were fact-checked.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson can be used in any middle school writing class and tailored to the specific skills the class is working on.
-This lesson helps students connect climate change to people.
-This lesson highlights a local community in the Arctic and demonstrates the impact storytelling can have.
-This lesson encourages students to participate in the writing process, including the planning and publishing stages.
-This lesson allows teachers to integrate skills specific to their students.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-The Inquire section gallery walk is about the student-made infographics from the previous lesson. Alternatively, teachers can use the infographics from the Teacher Slideshow.
-Students should understand the basics of writing a story. This includes, but is not limited to, characters, setting, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
-When teaching this lesson teachers should have a baseline understanding of how climate change works and understand some of the impacts in the Arctic.
-In this lesson the term, “story” is consistently used, despite one of the primary standards referring to the term, “narrative.” If students ask to clarify the difference, one way a middle school ELA teacher can differentiate personal narratives from stories is that a personal narrative is a true story whereas a story can be fictionalized.
-For their writing, students will need a basic understanding of the ways climate change is affecting their own communities.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-The final draft of the writing can be used as a summative assessment for this lesson.
-It may be helpful to share a map and show where the Arctic is located if students are unfamiliar.
-Students may need more specific and individual guidance when planning out their writing. Rubrics can be customized for individual students and their learning goals.
-Teachers can give students more time for writing the personal climate story.

SYNOPSIS: This lesson introduces students to the impacts of climate change on the Arctic.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson demonstrates the impacts of climate change on the Arctic region and thus provides a background for students to reflect on the causal relationship between temperature changes and ice melting, glaciers, permafrost, and sea level rise. Accordingly, this lesson is interactive, properly cited, and has passed our science credibility.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson situates the Arctic globally and introduces students to people who call the Arctic home, including youth.
-Alongside climate change, students learn about infographics as a way to understand and share information.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-For the game “Is It an Infographic?” game, teachers should present the Teacher Slideshow in slideshow mode to conceal the answer at first glance.
-When teaching this lesson, teachers should have a baseline understanding of how climate change works. This short interactive course offers easy-to-understand information on the basics of climate change.
-Teachers will need to plan ahead for the gallery walk.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-If teachers would like to spend more time on the infographic, both in teaching about infographics as a way to share information and on how to create an infographic, this website is an excellent resource.
-Infographic creation could be digital, adding technology skills to the outcomes, if students have access to technology and the appropriate software.

This course is an exploration of visual art forms and their cultural connections for the student with little experience in the visual arts. It includes a brief study of art history, and in-depth studies of the elements, media, and methods used in creative thought and processes. It is the only resource I have found that approximates techniques, media, and an overview of different processes that is usually the first half of a printed text on art appreciation or an introduction to art. This is geared toward an undergraduate, lower-level student population. The art history survey is inadequate, but combined with another source, like Boundless' art history, this can be a complete text for an Art 100 course.

A laboratory manual for a first-semester introductory biology class, developed at Greenfield Community College. Specifically, this manual is tailored towards community colleges, where biology majors and general education students are frequently in the same course sections. This manual is for online instruction, and features labs that students can do at home. It is designed to work in tandem with the textbook Foundations of Biology 2.0, also developed at Greenfield Community College.

A laboratory manual for a first-semester introductory biology class, developed at Greenfield Community College. Specifically, this manual is tailored towards community colleges, where biology majors and general education students are frequently in the same course sections. This manual is for face-to-face laboratories, and is designed to work in tandem with the textbook Foundations of Biology 2.0, also developed at Greenfield Community College.

Chemistry is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the two-semester general chemistry course. The textbook provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of chemistry and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them. The book also includes a number of innovative features, including interactive exercises and real-world applications, designed to enhance student learning.

Chemistry: Atoms First is a peer-reviewed, openly licensed introductory textbook produced through a collaborative publishing partnership between OpenStax and the University of Connecticut and UConn Undergraduate Student Government Association.

This title is an adaptation of the OpenStax Chemistry text and covers scope and sequence requirements of the two-semester general chemistry course. Reordered to fit an atoms first approach, this title introduces atomic and molecular structure much earlier than the traditional approach, delaying the introduction of more abstract material so students have time to acclimate to the study of chemistry. Chemistry: Atoms First also provides a basis for understanding the application of quantitative principles to the chemistry that underlies the entire course.

This course focuses on both theoretical knowledge and hands on application projects. The course will prepare students to not only utilize Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access software, but will also to be able to translate this knowledge to other similar application software commonly used in industry.
Chapter 1: Computers and Operating Systems - Hardware
Chapter 2: Computers and Operating Systems - Software
Chapter 3: Computers and Operating Systems - Security
Chapter 4: Processing Software - Concepts
Chapter 5: Processing Software - Formatting & Editing Techniques
Chapter 6: Processing Software - Inserting
Chapter 7: Processing Software - Other Features
Chapter 8: Presentations - Creating & Editing
Chapter 9: Presentations - Enhance
Chapter 10: Presentations - Add Media & Animation
Chapter 11: Spreadsheets
Chapter 12: Database Software - Database Objects
Chapter 13: Database Software - Querying a Database
Chapter 14: Database Software - Creating Reports & Forms

Students gain a basic understanding of the properties of media soil, sand, compost, gravel and how these materials affect the movement of water (infiltration/percolation) into and below the surface of the ground. They learn about permeability, porosity, particle size, surface area, capillary action, storage capacity and field capacity, and how the characteristics of the materials that compose the media layer ultimately affect the recharging of groundwater tables. They test each type of material, determining storage capacity, field capacity and infiltration rates, seeing the effect of media size on infiltration rate and storage. Then teams apply the testing results to the design their own material mixes that best meet the design requirements. To conclude, they talk about how engineers apply what students learned in the activity about the infiltration rates of different soil materials to the design of stormwater management systems.

An adaptation of OpenStax Biology and OpenStax Concepts of Biology from Greenfield Community College. in this version, we've curated content from both open textbooks to create a version suitable for an intro biology class in a community college, which frequently includes both biology majors and students taking the course as part of a general education curriculum.

Chapter 1: Essential Ideas
Chapter 2: Atoms, Molecules, and Ions
Chapter 3: Electronic Structure and Periodic Properties of Elements
Chapter 4: Chemical Bonding and Molecular Geometry
Chapter 5: Advanced Theories of Bonding
Chapter 6: Composition of Substances and Solutions
Chapter 7: Stoichiometry of Chemical Reactions
Chapter 8: Gases
Chapter 9: Thermochemistry

Students are introduced to innovative stormwater management strategies that are being used to restore the hydrology and water quality of urbanized areas to pre-development conditions. Collectively called green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, they include green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopy, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. These approaches differ from the traditional centralized stormwater collection system with the idea of handling stormwater at its sources, resulting in many environmental, economic and societal benefits. A PowerPoint® presentation provides photographic examples, and a companion file gives students the opportunity to sketch in their ideas for using the technologies to make improvements to 10 real-world design scenarios.

Students are presented with a guide to rain garden construction in an activity that culminates the unit and pulls together what they have learned and prepared in materials during the three previous associated activities. They learn about the four vertical zones that make up a typical rain garden with the purpose to cultivate natural infiltration of stormwater. Student groups create personal rain gardens planted with native species that can be installed on the school campus, within the surrounding community, or at students' homes to provide a green infrastructure and low-impact development technology solution for areas with poor drainage that often flood during storm events.

Through multi-trial experiments, students are able to see and measure something that is otherwise invisible to them seeing plants breathe. Student groups are given two small plants of native species and materials to enclose them after watering with colored water. After being enclosed for 5, 10 and 15 minutes, teams collect and measure the condensed water from the plants' "breathing," and then calculate the rates at which the plants breathe. A plant's breath is known as transpiration, which is the flow of water from the ground where it is taken up by roots (plant uptake) and then lost through the leaves. Students plot volume/time data for three different native plant species, determine and compare their transpiration rates to see which had the highest reaction rate and consider how a plant's unique characteristics (leaf surface area, transpiration rate) might figure into engineers' designs for neighborhood stormwater management plans.

Students use everyday building materials sand, pea gravel, cement and water to create and test pervious pavement. They learn what materials make up a traditional, impervious concrete mix and how pervious pavement mixes differ. Groups are challenged to create their own pervious pavement mixes, experimenting with material ratios to evaluate how infiltration rates change with different mix combinations.

Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT kit, students construct experiments to measure the time it takes a free falling body to travel a specified distance. Students use the touch sensor, rotational sensor, and the NXT brick to measure the time of flight for the falling object at different release heights. After the object is released from its holder and travels a specified distance, a touch sensor is triggered and time of object's descent from release to impact at touch sensor is recorded and displayed on the screen of the NXT. Students calculate the average velocity of the falling object from each point of release, and construct a graph of average velocity versus time. They also create a best fit line for the graph using spreadsheet software. Students use the slope of the best fit line to determine their experimental g value and compare this to the standard value of g.

Through an overview of the components of the hydrologic cycle and the important roles they play in the design of engineered systems, students' awareness of the world's limited fresh water resources is heightened. The hydrologic cycle affects everyone and is the single most critical component to life on Earth. Students examine in detail the water cycle components and phase transitions, and then learn how water moves through the human-made urban environment. This urban "stormwater" water cycle is influenced by the pervasive existence of impervious surfaces that limit the amount of infiltration, resulting in high levels of stormwater runoff, limited groundwater replenishment and reduced groundwater flow. Students show their understanding of the process by writing a description of the path of a water droplet through the urban water cycle, from the droplet's point of view. The lesson lays the groundwork for rest of the unit, so students can begin to think about what they might do to modify the urban "stormwater" water cycle so that it functions more like the natural water cycle. A PowerPoint® presentation and handout are provided.

In this curriculum module, students in high school life science, marine science, and/or chemistry courses act as interdisciplinary scientists and delegates to investigate how the changing carbon cycle will affect the oceans along with their integral populations.

The oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and play a critical role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide through the interaction of physical, chemical, and biological processes. As a result of anthropogenic activity, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration (to 760 ppm) is expected to occur by the end of this century. A quarter of the total CO2 emitted has already been absorbed by the surface oceans, changing the marine carbonate system, resulting in a decrease in pH, a change in carbonate-ion concentrations, and a change in the speciation of macro and micronutrients. The shift in the carbonate system is already drastically affecting biological processes in the oceans and is predicted to have major consequences on carbon export to the deep ocean with reverberating effects on atmospheric CO2. Put in simple terms, ocean acidification is a complex phenomenon with complex consequences. Understanding complexity and the impact of ocean acidification requires systems thinking – both in research and in education. Scientific advancement will help us better understand the problem and devise more effective solutions, but executing these solutions will require widespread public participation to mitigate this global problem.

Through these lessons, students closely model what is occurring in laboratories worldwide and at Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) through Monica Orellana’s research to analyze the effect CO2 has on ocean chemistry, ecosystems and human societies. Students experiment, analyze public data, and prepare for a mock summit to address concerns. Student groups represent key “interest groups” and design two experiments to observe the effects of CO2 on seawater pH, diatom growth, algal blooms, nutrient availability, and/or shell dissolution.

Engineers design and implement many creative techniques for managing stormwater at its sources in order to improve and restore the hydrology and water quality of developed sites to pre-development conditions. Through the two lessons in this unit, students are introduced to green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, including green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopies, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. Student teams take on the role of stormwater engineers through five associated activities. They first model the water cycle, and then measure transpiration rates and compare native plant species. They investigate the differences in infiltration rates and storage capacities between several types of planting media before designing their own media mixes to meet design criteria. Then they design and test their own pervious pavement mix combinations. In the culminating activity, teams bring together all the concepts as well as many of the materials from the previous activities in order to create and install personal rain gardens. The unit prepares the students and teachers to take on the design and installation of bigger rain garden projects to manage stormwater at their school campuses, homes and communities.