All synthetic materials began as natural materials. An engaging lesson begins with a hands-on activity and an example of the type of research that scholars perform independently. Then pupils receive a topic and begin researching the...

A series on environmental engineering introduces the class to issues that environmental engineers work to solve. This first lesson focuses on air and land issues, and looks at ways to reduce pollution.

How are maps like fish? They both have scales. The chapter includes six different activities at three different levels. Scholars complete activities using natural resources, learn how to read a map, see how to make a compass rosette,...

North American Indian civilizations had already been in place for over 10,000 years before the arrival of European settlers. Introduce your young historians to Indian tribes that lived in the Chesapeake region in the early seventeenth...

Teach your class some fairly complex terms—factors of production, human resources, capital resources, natural resources, and intermediate goods—with a storybook (Messy Bessey's Holidays), plenty of visuals and handouts, and related...

Trying to plan an engaging elementary science unit on natural resources? Conserve your energy! This five-part series of lessons and hands-on activities has exactly what you need to teach young scholars about the importance of conservation.

Discuss wants and needs with your elementary ecologists and get them to consider what would happen to our natural resources if we all got everything that we want. Learners play a card sorting game and take an ecological footprint quiz on...

What happens to our recycling once it is hauled away? In the third of four Earth Day lessons about recycling and reducing our impact on the world's natural resources, learners explore where recycled materials go and what becomes of them....

Humans are quickly depleting Earth's fossil fuels and locating them is becoming increasingly difficult! Layered muffins are used for models as young geologists take core samples in order to determine the presence of oil. Consider first...

The Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to purchase land from the U.S. Government at 1872 prices - about $5.00 an acre! This video features the town of Crested Butte, Colorado, and a mountain just outside of town that was...

Introduce youngsters to the term ecological footprint. Learners identify ways in which humans affect the environment. They look at the problems associated with the use of natural resources, and focus on ways to preserve natural...

NASA has crafted an imaginative and memorable series of lessons, "NASA and Jamestown Education Module." This instructional activity is one of the five components. In it, middle schoolers connect history and science by comparing the...

Define the term "urban forestry"; discuss several problems facing urban forests today and both government and public efforts centered on developing and maintaining sustainable urban forests. Develop a feasible action plan for alternative...

Students investigate the use of soil, an important natural resource in artwork. They experiment by crushing soil particles and adding the different color samples to artist acrylic to create true "earth colors". Using this paint, they...

New ReviewExplore a variety of science concepts in an interactive textbook created for middle school scholars. A lengthy table of contents takes readers to pages comprised of a subject overview, outline, and summary. Follow links further to find...

There is a limited supply of natural resources. Pupils complete a series of activities to investigate the natural resources used in food processing. They consider food waste to draw conclusions about the amount of resources used...

Extracting oil is more difficult than many think! Learners work together and get hands-on as they represent oil companies drilling for oil by simulating oil extraction using beans. They identify the challenges faced in using...

Both Athens and Sparta made choices to survive in ancient Greece. Those choices were, in essence, economic ones about how to direct resources. A Venn diagram activity and reading ask class members to examine the connection between...

If you lived in prehistoric times, what kinds of choices could your family make to increase their chance of survival? By making similar decisions in a simulation game, participants discover how specialization creates both opportunity and...

When you think about environmental sustainability, the Ford Motor Company probably isn't the first company to come to mind. A four-lesson unit introduces learners to the idea of sustainability and environmental stewardship. It describes...

How do miners isolate the substance they're looking for from a big pile of rock? Through an insightful lab, science scholars learn how to use their observation skills to identify physical properties that scientists use to separate...

Humans cannot survive without water, and neither can civilizations. A brief history of ancient civilizations and their dependence on—and management of—water demonstrates how states either flourish or flail based on the availability of...

Explore the natural resources on earth in relation to the specific Next Generation Standard. Understanding these resources are not evenly distributed in all locations helps gain a perspective of their uses. Nonrenewable resources need...

Science, engineering, and technology have an impact on our natural world. As the world population increases, the demands on natural resources also increase. Science, technology, and engineering work together to address these concerns...