The relationships within and between ecosystems can be explored. after examining an area for living and non-living things students complete the same examination in the forest ecosystem. Students identify abiotic and biotic elements in an...

Forests, through sequestration, capture excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and store it, aiding in climate change. The third installment in a four-part series on how climate impacts forests explores carbon sequestration....

Students become familiar with the temperate rainforest.  In this forest ecosystem lesson, students identify the producers, consumers and decomposers in the forest ecosystem.  Students sort cards and identify the trophic level...

Students examine the causes and effects of alterations in a forest ecosystem and evaluate how human actions may only seem to have minor consequences, but can lead to extinctions of large numbers of populations. Students produce an...

As part of their examination of forest ecosystems, class members examine how foresters, biologists, botanists, geologists, and hydrologists work to together to develop a management plan for sustainable forests.

How is a movie theater like a desert biome? Compare systems to ecosystems with a set of activities that focuses on accessing multiple intelligences and building upon knowledge. As learners discuss the ways elements of an ecosystem depend...

Students discuss ecosystems, eliciting their current knowledge of an ecosystem. Students receive an Ecosystems document and look at the picture. Students brainstorm connection between the cover picture and ecosystems. The indicated...

There otter be a better way. As a class, groups work together to create a food web based on the organisms in the kelp forest. Budding scientists watch a video on the kelp forest to see how the organisms create a food web and hear about...

Third graders research insects using the internet sites provided. They research the role of insects as pollinators for plants, and the impact they have on our ecosystem. They participate in various activities/centers utilizing the facts...

How does water pollution affect the environment? Provide your class with the resources to answer this question as they learn about eutrophication and ecosystem changes. Over two weeks, they simulate the effects of pollution on the...

To conclude their examination of forest ecosystems, class members consider the role forests play in the carbon cycle and how forests can offset climate change.

Class groups play a Forest Families card game to reinforce concepts presented in the first six sessions of a nine-lesson study of tress and forest ecosystems.

Learners explain that while cities have unattractive features, the density of human life enables energy efficiency, mass transit, recycling, and other benefits which are difficult or impossible in rural areas. This is the fifth in an...

Purifying air and water, providing soil in which to grow crops, and moving water through its natural cycle are all services an ecosystem provides that benefit humans. Lesson four in a series lets learners explore and discuss the value of...

Fifth graders examine plants and animals in two ecosystems and compare them. In this ecosystem survival lesson, 5th graders compare and contrast a coral reef and kelp forest ecosystem. Students investigate the abiotic and biotic...

What a great project to use as part of an exploration of animals or habitats. Learners design a clay model of a home for a forest animal. This could be a great way to cement what your class has learned about habitats. 

Students discover that material and energy uses by a city come from outside the city boundaries. They realize that the pathway of these material is linear instead of cyclical as they are in natural ecosystems.

Learners obtain remote sensing data to compare and contrast global biomass data with global temperature data.

Young scholars examine the relationships between plants, animals, and the environment in ecosystems. They sort animal cards, collect natural materials from the schoolyard, and record an ecosystem web in the form of a poster.

Students write a story based on their research of the kelp forest. In this ecosystem lesson, students view a video and research the kelp forest ecosystem. They write a short story imagining the discovery of a new species in the kelp forest.

One hundred metric tons of CO2 can accumulate in one acre of forest over time—that's a lot of carbon! In the activity, groups of middle school learners determine what makes forests important. They then solidify the concept by using a...

Ecosystems provide many things humans not only use but also need in order to survive. The last lesson in the series of seven introduces scholars to the idea of ecosystem services, that ecosystems provide humans with many things we need....

Second in a series of five lessons, this lesson encourages preteens to consider cities as urban ecosystems. First, they keep a food diary for a few days. They visit the Natrional Agricultural Statistics Service website for current data...

Learners work as a group to determine a management plan for an imaginary forest. For this forestry lesson, students discuss timber management techniques and develop a list of pros and cons for the techniques. They develop a management...