Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Three R's: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

For Teachers 1st - 2nd
Students understand conservation terms. In this three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) lesson, students understand the importance of preserving a clean world and reducing waste. Students sing a song which show importance of 3R's.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Intermediate Activity: Energy Guide Labels

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore energy efficient appliances.  In this economics and ecology lesson, students compare and analyze EnergyGuide labels of various appliances.  Students discuss federal government involvement with consumer...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Bermuda: Search for Deep Water Caves: Living Fossils

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore relict species. In this anchialine cave lesson, students identify relict species associated with anchialine caves, and explain the importance of preserving anchialine caves and species.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Class Conservation Corps (CCC)

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students investigate how the loss of soil, a valuable natural resource, affects their lives through loss of productive land to grow food, loss of coastal land mass, and poor water quality from runoff. They design a project to keep soil...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Drinking Dirty Water

For Teachers 1st - 3rd
Students consider the importance of clean drinking water. They conduct a taste experiment with water, adding incremental drips of salt and vinegar to determine at which point it doesn't taste drinkable.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Environmental Science/Water Pollution

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Students study natural habitats, aquatic life, renewable and non-renewable resources. They discuss conservation efforts for sea otters and desert toad in this units.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

TE Activity: The Great Divide

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students simulate the distribution of nonrenewable energy resources using cookies. They determine how the world's growing population effects the equitable distribution of these resources. They look at how engineers work to develop...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Watershed Investigations

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore the components of a watershed and the factors that affect it. They read a topographical map and use geometry to determine the area of a watershed. Students estimate the volume of a body of water and perform runoff...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Soak it up

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Learners complete a hands on activity using hard boiled eggs, food coloring, tape, cups, water, and a knife to show how permeability affects animals. In this permeability lesson plan, students complete this activity and learn how...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Exploring for Petroleum - Modeling an Oil Reserve

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students experiment with locating oil reserves. In this conservation lesson, students use a cardboard box to create sand, rocks, and an oil reserve (water balloon). They use a probe to dig around in the box to find the oil reserve and...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Air Pollution

For Teachers 9th - 11th
Students seek solutions to environmental problems. They discover how to conserve and protect natural resources. They examine the role of acid rain on plants and discover how to filter pollutants.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Treasures in Jeopardy

For Teachers 6th - 8th
In small groups, middle schoolers research deep-sea coral reefs and design a poster to educate the public about their importance. They compare them to shallow-water reefs and consider the impact of bottom-trawl fishing. Many internet...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Who's in Charge of This Animal?

For Teachers 11th
Eleventh graders study wildlife management and identify the appropriate government agencies that are in charge. They examine different wildlife management techniques. They write a letter showing interest in the activities of one of the...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Renewable vs. Non-Renewable Resources

For Teachers 5th
Here's a fine instructional activity on renewable and non-renewable sources of energy for your 5th graders. In it, learners list a number of natural resources on the board, then try to sort the resources into appropriate categories. This...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Soil Runoff Challenge

For Teachers 4th - 9th
Young scholars find ways to decrease soil runoff for an African Village as a part of a Peace Corps project. In this soil runoff lesson, students play a soil runoff challenge online. Young scholars complete online activities and view a...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Biodiversity Debate - Stream Side Science

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Role play community members who are both for and against the construction of a dam. Research the pros and cons and then hold a classroom debate. This activity ideally follows a series of stream studies, links to which are included. Use...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Electrostatics

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Middle schoolers examine ways positive and negative charges are attracted and repelled by watching teacher demonstrations, and complete activity sheet related to classroom demonstration activities to prove proficiency of knowledge of...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

A Tale of Two Wetlands

For Teachers 2nd - 3rd
Pupils observe 2 separate wetlands (following downloadable worksheets) and record 10 similarities and 10 differences between them. Then they present their recommendations to the class who roleplay the government's wetland conservation...
Worksheet
Curated OER

The Human Impact on the Environment

For Students 9th - 12th
Despite the typos and formatting issues, the Word document found here has some great potential. There are two questions that ask learners to put several events in a logical order; these could easily be made into a card sort activity....
Worksheet
Curated OER

Interstate Relations

For Students 10th - 12th
Your class might be clear on how the federal government relates to states, but what about how states relate to each other? Challenge your students with this worksheet, which could function as a review activity or as a quiz. Questions...
Lesson Plan
Carnegie Mellon University

How Power Plants Work 3

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble! Find out what drives a turbine to generate electricity and whether or not it has an impact on the environment. A discussion and lecture is divided by a hands-on activity in...
Lesson Plan
Carnegie Mellon University

Natural Gas and Pennsylvania’s Future

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Beginning with a general discussion about natural gas, methane, and hydrocarbons, a few videos and diagrams are projected to support the lecture. Individuals participate in a brief activity by drinking juice through a straw, and then...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Overpopulation

For Teachers 5th - 11th
Students examine population growth and how it impacts our environment.  In this population lesson plan students identify the causes and consequences of overpopulation.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Let the Sunshine in

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students collect and analyze data to study wavelengths of visible light. They cover Styrofoam cups with three different colors of sun filtering products and shine a lamp directly on the cups. They determine the most effective filtering...