Resource Library

This teacher page, produced by the Energy Information Administration, provides activities for using Energy Kids as a resource to teach students about energy in a fun and interactive way. The website includes lesson plans, field trips, a career corner, and a teacher guide. The guide provides Language Arts, Math, Performing Arts, Science and Social Studies extension activities by age levels.

Waves, Wetlands, and Watersheds is a classroom and community activity guide for teachers that addresses issues such as endangered species, marine debris, coastal geology, water use and much more. It is carefully aligned to the California State Science Content Standards for grades 3 through 8 and includes "Community Action" lessons adaptable for all ages up to and beyond 12th grade.

This collection of lesson plans and student activities from Teacher’s Domain compares and contrasts the traditional knowledge of native people and ongoing scientific research and shows how the two can complement each other in looking for solutions to climate change.

The California Center for the Book, in partnership with the Water Education Foundation, supplies resources to help public libraries host programming about water. Resources are available online and include a Water Issues Guide, a Water Book List, web resources, and more.

In this lesson plan from National Geographic Xpeditions, students learn about some of the important discoveries that oceanographers have made and some areas that they are still investigating. Students make posters explaining how oceanography is important and how it’s used. The lesson is appropriate for grades 3-5 and adheres to National Geography Standards.

"Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears" is an online magazine for K-5 teachers, integrating science, literacy and the Polar Regions. Lesson plans provided align with National Science Education Standards while exploring the Arctic and Antarctica. Beyond the lesson plans, this online magazine broadcasts free webinars, podcasts and provides electronic books for grades K-5.

Each year, in affiliation with The Library of Congress Center for the Book, River of Words conducts a free international poetry and art contest for youth on the theme of watersheds. The contest is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural history of the place they live and to express, through poetry and art, what they discover.

Students explore ways in which people are constantly exposed to naturally occurring and man-made sources of radiation. Students then create and play a board game featuring different hypothetical scenarios of radiation exposure. This lesson is best suited for grades 6-12, and adheres to McRel Health, Geography, Language Arts, and Science Academic Content Standards.

In this lesson plan from Discovery Education, students review the video Science Investigations: Investigating the Earth’s Waters. Students then imagine that they are visiting one of the places highlighted in the video and and create postcards with an illustration of the site on one side and a description on the other.

In this lesson, students learn about the importance of forests and vegetation in preventing soil erosion caused by water. They construct a hill that slopes gently from one end of the pan to the other and predict what will happen when the group sprinkles water on its hill. They compare their results and formulate a hypothesis, as a class.