The goal of this unit is for students to gain an awareness of several potential ways to mitigate climate change. Many climate solutions exist, are in use, and can be expanded in scale. Students will examine solutions from Bending the Curve, explore carbon sequestration by trees, coastal wetland restoration, and food waste reduction in more detail. They will propose three (3) realistic solutions that could happen at an individual, school, or community scale that would assist in mitigating climate change.

In this experiment, students investigate the importance of carbon dioxide to the reproductive growth of a marine microalga, Dunalliela sp. (Note that the directions are for teachers and that students protocol sheets will need to be created by teachers.)

In this activity, students use a spreadsheet to calculate the net carbon sequestration in a set of trees; they will utilize an allometric approach based upon parameters measured on the individual trees. They determine the species of trees in the set, measure trunk diameter at a particular height, and use the spreadsheet to calculate carbon content of the tree using forestry research data.

In this 3-part lab activity, students investigate how carbon moves through the global carbon cycle and study the effects of specific feedback loops on the carbon cycle.

In this classroom activity, students analyze visualizations and graphs that show the annual cycle of plant growth and decline. They explore patterns of annual change for the globe and several regions in each hemisphere that have different land cover and will match graphs that show annual green-up and green-down patterns with a specific land cover type.

You are part of the NASA design crew and your task is to design a suit to keep the human body safe from the hazards of deep space. Are you up to the challenge? This is an ADA compliant document.

Living and working in space presents many challenges for humans. Use this ADA Compliant student guide to explore what many of those challenges are as well as possible solutions.

While living in space can seem like nothing but exciting, astronauts encounter many physical, biological, and psychological hazards. Use this guide to explore more about living and working in space.

In this easy-to-do activity you will simulate the fluid shift felt by astronauts upon entering space.

Living and working in space presents many challenges for humans. Use this student guide to explore what many of those challenges are as well as possible solutions.

This set of activities is about carbon sources, sinks, and fluxes among them - both with and without anthropogenic components.

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.

Take a breath — where does the oxygen you inhaled come from? In our changing world, will we always have enough oxygen? What is in water that supports life? What is known? How do we know what we know about our vast oceans? These are just a few of the driving questions explored in this interactive STEAM high school curriculum module.

Students in marine science, environmental science, physics, chemistry, biology, integrated science, biotechnology and/or STEAM courses can use this curriculum module in order to use real-world, big data to investigate how our “invisible forest” influences ocean and Earth systems. Students build an art project to represent their new understanding and share this with the broader community.

This 4-week set of lessons is based on the oceanographic research of Dr. Anne Thompson of Portland State University in Oregon, which focuses on the abundant ocean phytoplankton Prochlorococcus. These interdisciplinary STEAM lessons were inspired by Dr. Thompson’s lab and fieldwork as well as many beautiful visualizations of Prochlorococcus, the ocean, and Earth. Students learn about the impact and importance of Prochlorococcus as the smallest and most abundant photosynthetic organism on our planet. Through the lessons, students act as both scientists and artists as they explore where breathable oxygen comes from and consider how to communicate the importance of tiny cells to human survival.

This module is written as a phenomenon-based, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) three-dimensional learning unit. Each of the lessons below also has an integrated, optional Project-Based Learning component that guides students as they complete the PBL process. Students learn to model a system and also design and evaluate questions to investigate phenomena. Students ultimately learn what is in a drop of ocean water and showcase how their drop contributes to our health and the stability and dynamics of global systems.

Students will engage in learning about the function and benefits of coastal wetlands and their role in adapting and mitigating rising carbon levels and sea level rise. Spatial and interactive planning tools will support students in collaboratively designing solutions to enhance coastal wetlands.

This short activity provides a way to improve understanding of a frequently-published diagram of global carbon pools and fluxes. Students create a scaled 3-D visual of carbon reservoirs and the movement of carbon between reservoirs.

The “Systems Are Everywhere” module was originally written for high school science teachers or counselors to use in any setting (in class or in extracurricular programs). However, during field-testing, we found that many elementary and middle school teachers were able to use these lessons successfully with their students. The module is made up of three lessons that serve to foster students’ understanding of systems, systems models, and systems thinking at every level of learning and across many content areas. Blended throughout the lessons are career connections that will introduce students to diverse systems thinkers in STEM, and provide context for how systems approaches are used in real life to address complex problems. The lessons and module can be used as a stand-alone set of activities or can be integrated into any course as an extension or enrichment.

The module begins with students modeling a complex system. Students will brainstorm and sketch the parts and connections of the system, then use an online tool (Loopy) to model the interactions of those parts and connections. Next, students will develop their understanding of systems thinking skills and their application for addressing problems and solutions. Then, students will apply their knowledge and skills to model a system of their choosing. Lastly, they will showcase their skills by creating a student profile and integrating their systems thinking skills into a resume.

Target Audience
This is our introductory module that we recommend teaching before each of our other modules to give students a background in systems and to help them understand the many careers available in STEM. This module can be applied easily to any content area and works best as written for students between 6th and 12th grades but can be adapted for other ages. It works very well when teaching virtually and in-person. If you are looking for an introduction to systems that can be delivered in-person with more kinesthetic activities, please see our Introduction to Systems module. The Intro to Systems module works best with 8-12 grade students, though can be used with some modifications for 6-7th graders. This Systems are Everywhere module can work well for elementary through secondary grades.

This is a jigsaw activity in which students are assigned to research one step out of five in the geochemical process stages of the organic carbon cycle. Students then teach their step in cross-step groups until everyone understands all five process stages.

Students explore the carbon cycle and the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature. Students create and compare graphs of carbon dioxide and temperature data from one local (Mauna Loa, Hawaii) meteorological station and one NASA global data set. These graphs, as well as a global vegetation map and an atmospheric wind circulation patterns diagram, are used as evidence to support the scientific claims they develop through their analysis and interpretation.