DiscoverE
Core Sampling
Simulate soil sample assemblages. Individuals create soil layers in a cup. They then use straws to collect core samples from these layers. What information can they glean from the core samples, I wonder?
Polar Trec
Polar Detectives: Using Ice Core Data to Decode Past Climate Mysteries
How does examining an ice core tell us about weather? Learners set up and explore fake ice cores made of sugar, salt, and ash to represent historical snowfall and volcanic eruptions. From their setups, scholars determine what caused the...
Polar Trec
Ice Cores: Modeling Ice Sheets
Ice cores provide scientists with knowledge of historic melt layers, air temperatures, greenhouse gases, and climate stability. Scholars work in groups to build layers representing snow and ice over thousands of years. Then, groups...
Curated OER
Mountain of Ice
Pupils graph and analyze chemical concentrations from ice core data. In small groups they prepare their graphs using colored pencils, and discuss the results.
It's About Time
Paleoclimates
How do scientists know what the Earth was like in the past? This second installment of a six-part series focuses on paleoclimates and provides an overview of how geologists determine information about past climates using fossil pollen,...
US Environmental Protection Agency
Getting to the Core: The Link Between Temperature and Carbon Dioxide
Polar ice samples provide scientists with valuable information about the condition of the atmosphere for hundreds of thousands of years in the past. Of particular interest is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Historical Climate Cycles
Ice core samples give scientists access to climates of old—those from more than 800,000 years ago. Through an analysis of various temperature graphs from ice cores, tree rings, and weather stations, scholars compare historical climates...
Curated OER
Changing Planet: Black Carbon - a Dusty Situation
Introduce your young meteorologists to black carbon produced by the burning of fossil fuels by showing the video, "Changing Planet: Black Carbon." Viewers discover that deposition of this carbon on polar ice impacts the absorption of...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Historical Climate Cycles
Scientists use ice core samples to obtain temperatures of the earth from 400,000 years ago! The third of five lessons instructs pupils to interpret historical climate data to see changes over time. In part I, participants interpret...
Curated OER
Getting to the Core of Climate Change
Young scholars investigate climate changes by graphing and analyzing ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica. They create, explain and report the pattern of data on a graph of ice core data. In addition they find relationships...
Curated OER
Let's Get To the Core!
Students practice analyzing ice core samples to discover climate changes. Using the samples, they identify and graph the gas amounts. They use these numbers to determine their effect on global warming. In pairs, they complete a...
Curated OER
Signs of Change: Tree Rings
Students identify and experiment with dendrochronology (the study of tree rings to answer ecological questions about the recent past) and come up with conclusions as to what possible climatic conditions might affect tree growth in their...
Texas State Energy Conservation Office
Investigation: Is Dilution the Solution?
Systematically diluting a full-strength sample of food coloring is meant to help earth scientists understand concentration in parts per million. While they will enjoy the lab exercise, it might be a challenge to help them relate it to...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Pardon Me, Your Modifier is Dangling
Lost! (or misplaced) a modifier. Last seen dangling at the end of a sentence! Reward offered! To underscore the humor, class members are each given a sample sentence to illustrate (A woman passed by, leading a Springer Spaniel, in a long...
Curated OER
Weather History
Learners study how weather is measured. In this climate lesson plan, students research how samples of the ocean floor reveal facts about the climate thousands of years ago. Learners use clay samples to create layers that simulate real...
Curated OER
Glaciers As Indicators of Global Climate Change
Students research about glacial ice melting on the four major spheres of the Earth. In this earth science lesson, students explain how this process relates to global warming. They create a presentation and share their findings with the...
Kenan Fellows
Reading Airline Maintenance Graphs
Airline mechanics must be precise, or the consequences could be deadly. Their target ranges alter with changes in temperature and pressure. When preparing an airplane for flight, you must read a maintenance graph. The second lesson of...
Rainforest Alliance
My Forest or the Rainforest?
The differences between tropical and temperate rainforests range from animals and flowers to climate and landscapes. Kindergarteners compare and contrast characteristics of their local forest to a tropical rainforest.
Curated OER
Methuselah Tree
Young scholars examine how scientists determine the age of living and non-living trees. They simulate the role of a tree-ring scientist, crossdating tree-ring samples and determining which sample is the oldest and the age of the samples.
Curated OER
Is There Sewage in My Sample?
Students explore the proximity of the Hudson Shelf Valley and the Hudson Canyon to one of the Nation's most populated areas. They study that from 1987 to 1992, two dumpsites in the Hudson Shelf Valley and Hudson Canyon, one 12 miles
Curated OER
Nutrition Unit
First graders complete activities for the six basic food groups. For this food groups lesson, 1st graders view examples of food samples from the various groups and sample the foods. Students discuss the food pyramid and draw a fruit or...
Curated OER
The Mathematics of Convection: Nature's Model for Energy Production
High schoolers conduct a series of experiments to investigate density, buoyancy and climate. In this math lesson, pupils design and build a hot air balloon to demonstrate convection. They research and write a paper about solar chimneys.
Columbus City Schools
The Mystery of Earth’s History
Every living creature can leave a fossil record, yet most fossils belong to extinct organisms rather than ones currently living. Scholars learn about dating rock layers, fossils, and the environment of the past. Pupils understand that...
Curated OER
Analyzing Tree Rings to Determine Climate Change
Students examine how to locate and access data sets. In this climate change instructional activity students import data into Excel and graph it.