Earth Science

In the pursuit of her Girl Scout Gold Award, Tarin Rickett of Croton-On-Hudson, NY created an extensive lesson plan booklet focusing on Invasive Species. Realizing that invasive species pose a serious threat to ecosystems around the globe, Tarin's lesson plan booklet includes classroom activities geared towards 4th, 5th, and 6th graders (though they can be adapted for older age groups).

The NCSE-NASA Interdisciplinary Climate Change Education Team is developing a curricular package on climate change based on a University of California Davis course taught by Professor Arnold Bloom. The curriculum includes modules that cover a wide range of topics relevant to climate change. Data produced by NASA is used to create data-driven modules focusing on ice core and recent climate change observations.

PULSE is an interdisciplinary curriculum. It is designed to improve life science literacy by providing lessons for core high school subjects that address environmental health and biomedical research. These topics are equally relevant and motivating within science classrooms and also in those of geography, language arts, government, world and American history, and mathematics classes.

Voyage From The Sun is a 20-lesson classroom science module designed to introduce 4th-9th grade students to the major ways in which energy is important in living systems. Voyage encourages students to explore the story of Earth's energy. Students examine how they use energy, where it comes from, and how human impact on natural habitats affects the natural energy flow. Voyage From The Sun supports science reform efforts by building bridges between biology, the physical sciences, math and language arts.

Originally created for use in Texas, Knowledge is Power is an energy efficiency curriculum supplement for grades K-12. These lesson plans on energy conservation and energy efficiency are correlated to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards and include starter activities, extensions, and discussion questions.

Students develop an integrated project through the comprehensive study of a species, a region, or both. This long-term project requires students to explore fiction, history, cultural attitudes, and government. The scientific data students can collect and analyze may include GIS information, climate and weather, satellite tracking/mapping, and observations from research scientists' journals. This lesson is best suited for grades 5-9 and adheres to National Science Education Standards.

To become familiar with endangered species' habitats and characteristics, students design, present, and evaluate a visual presentation (kiosk or website) for a specific endangered species. This lesson is designed for grade 4 and adheres to Florida Sunshine State Standards.

In this lesson 2nd graders will gather information about an endangered species, the panda. After making a research web as a class, the class will work together to organize and write a research report about Pandas. This research report will then be posted on the website Project: TESAN - The Endangered Species and Nature, a collaborative project that posts and collects student work about endangered species from all over the world. This lesson is best suited for Grade 2 and adheres to National Education Standards.

This activity, developed by Smithsonian Education and tied to National Science Content Standards and National Mathematics Standards, helps introduce environmental issues using fun and challenging real-world math problems. Students do the work of a team of paleontologists studying a time of rapid global warming 55 million years ago. By examining fossils of leaves from various tree species, and by incorporating the findings into a mathematical formula, the students are able to tell average annual temperatures during this prehistoric time.