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Water You Can Use from the Air Conditioner
Students work together to research water quantity, quality and safety standards. They complete a lab to discover how to use the water from an air conditioner. They write a paper to show their findings.
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How Science Works: Natural Selection
Students are introduced to the topic of adaptation and discuss how various animals adapt to their environment. In groups, they participate in a simulation in which they are selected based on criteria. They discuss the results and relate...
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Multiplying Microbes
Middle schoolers examine environmental conditions that effect bacteria growth. They culture bacteria, design and conduct an experiment, and identify the conditions that effected the bacteria growth using the scientific method.
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Is Your Water Clean?
Students conduct tests of water samples from different sources, such as a local river, tap water, and an irrigation ditch. After determining which pollutants are present in each sample, students hypothesize the possible sources of the...
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Careers in Science
Stuents explore the current job market for scientists. They explore types of jobs, salary range and job requirements. Students write a letter of application for a particular job.
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The Brine Shrimp Project
Tenth graders design and conduct a laboratory investigation to determine how different factors may affect the hatching and development of brine shrimp eggs.
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Beans and Birds: A Natural Selection Simulation
Students examine the problem concerning the evolution of seed color in pinto bean plants "How does natural selection change the frequency of genes or traits over many generations"? Students work in teams to design an experiment that...
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Going for the Green
Pupils use satellite imagery to obtain information on chlorophyll concentration at selected locations in the Earth's oceans.Students explain the relationship between chlorophyll concentration and primary production.Studen
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Global Symposium
Ninth graders work together to develop a sysnopis on the Earth. Using the Internet and print sources, they focus on one country to research and determine its condition. They offer possible solutions to the problem and share their...
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Nuts & Bolts: is Classification, Arbitrary, Or Not?
Students, in groups, classify furniture, share their categories and rationales, then note how their different schemes vary, perfectly logical and useful, but completely arbitrary.
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An Investigation into Effects of Rhizobium Soil Bacteria on Nitrogen Availability
Students identify the control and the variables in the experiment. They describe the growth of plants with and without nitrogen fixing bacteria, then name the bacterium responsible for making nitrogen available to the plant.
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Aquatic Insects: Water Quality Index & Diversity Index
Students search stream beds to study the life cycle and adaptations of stream insects. They explore creeks and streams to see the diversity index of creeks or streams and to find the water qualit index.
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Biotic Factors
Students identify individual organism, a species, and a population within the study community. They identify biotic factors at the site and attempt to characterize the site's species diversity.
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Educating the Community
Students research the effects of invasive and exotic plants. They create posters, webpages and books to educate the community. They present their material in different forums.
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Lotic Environment Lesson Plans
Students create and conduct experiments on a "classroom river habitat." They manipulate the biotic and abiotic factors so that they are able to compare an artificially prepared river model to a naturally occurring lotic ecosystem.
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Field Experiments on Succession
Student develop a hypothesis regarding the effects of either mowing or fertilizer upon the diversity of plant species in a grassland ecosystem. They set up experiment field plots and measure species richness.