Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Population Dynamics
Will human population growth always be exponential, or will we find a limiting factor we can't avoid? Young scientists learn about both exponential and logistic growth models in various animal populations. They use case studies to...
CK-12 Foundation
Limiting Factors to Population Growth: Graphing Population Growth
If any of the limiting factors in an environment change, both animal and plant populations also change. The video explains two different models of growth and the impact of limiting factors. It highlights the carrying capacity of an...
Serendip
Understanding and Predicting Changes in Population Size – Exponential and Logistic Population Growth Models vs. Complex Reality
Salmonella poisoning impacts over 200,000 people in the United States each year. Scholars learn about the growth of these bacteria using multiple approaches. Then they apply the same growth calculations to endangered species and think...
School Improvement in Maryland
Smart Growth
New roads, new businesses, new developments, new mass transit systems. All growth has both positive and negative effects on communities. Government classes investigate the principles of Maryland's 1997 Smart Growth program and...
Council for Economic Education
The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution
What effect could one person's invention have on the human race? In the case of the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, small improvements in farming methods led to increased food production. The human population began to boom, leading us...
Science 4 Inquiry
The Ups and Downs of Populations
As the reality of population decline across many species becomes real, pupils learn about the variables related to changes in populations. They complete a simulation of population changes and graph the results, then discuss limiting...
Annenberg Foundation
Skeeters Are Overrunning the World
Skeeters are used to model linear and exponential population growth in a wonderfully organized lesson plan including teachers' and students' notes, an assignment, graphs, tables, and equations. Filled with constant deep-reaching...
NOAA
What Killed the Seeds?
Can a coral cure cancer? Take seventh and eighth grade science sleuths to the underwater drugstore for an investigation into emerging pharmaceutical research. The fifth installment in a series of six has classmates research the wealth of...
Open Oregon Educational Resources
Environmental Biology
Everyone has a responsibility to take care of the environment. Give learners a sense of our environmental concerns with a complete course on environmental biology. The textbook resource includes instruction on topics such as population...
Curated OER
Anthropogenic Biomes
If you teach a man to fish, he will never go hungry—or he will overfish and permanently damage the ecosystem? Address the traditional biomes as well as the human-included ecosystems and contrasts the biotic and abiotic factors in each....
Global Oneness Project
Citizen Photojournalism
Matt Black's photo essay, "The Geography of Poverty" provides a shocking reminder of the poverty that exists in the United States. The resource not only focuses attention on poverty but also conditions that have given rise to situation...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The First Communities
These documents list essential questions and foundational concepts associated with early civilizations and farming communities in the agricultural revolution. Use this as a starting point for developing specific lessons and activities...