How can we show the ways our society prioritizes environmental issues? Life on Land, Life below water, Clean Water and Sanitation, and Climate Action .... Do surrounding communities prioritize the solving of environmental issues differently? How do communities unite individuals to be part of the solution to these environmental problems?  

Have you ever passed a pond or swamp and seen bugs walking on the water? Find out how they do it in this Smithsonian Lightning Lesson.

Astronauts cannot just flip on a faucet when they want to wash their hands. Learn about water conservation on the International Space Station.

Learn how to make a water filter using materials from around your home or classroom.

Find out how much of the water on Earth available as drinking water.

This is a PPT presentation on the novel Like Water for Chocolate.  It is designed to introduce students to the novel before reading.

This activity is done after students have completed or are in the process of completing reading and lectures on ground water flow, earthquakes, and geologic hazards. In class, students receive all the materials necessary to complete the activity, along with worksheets that contain instructions and questions that need to be answered. Their task is to make predictions, execute the activities, and comment on what the outcomes.

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This video segment from a WPSU documentary Liquid Assets connects public health to the availability of clean and safe drinking water and elaborates on the threats our bodies face due to increasing kinds and quantities of pollutants.

This is a hands-on lab activity about seawater density. After developing a hypothesis, learners will conduct a simple investigation of density. They will discuss changes in density observed and describe how salt affects the density of water. Background information, common student preconceptions, a glossary and more is included. This activity is part of the Aquarius Hands-on Laboratory Activities.

Lithography, from the Greek for "stone printing," is an intricate printmaking process that revolves around grease and water resisting one another. An artist will draw with a greasy material on a lithographic stone, and then chemically treat the stone to etch the drawing into the stone, which can then be inked to produce many impressions on paper.

Interactive map tool to assess how rising stream temperatures could affect native fish of the Northwest. Lesson concepts include the relationship between water temperatures, dissolved oxygen levels in streams, and the impacts of changing temperatures on native fish. Focused skills include use of an interactive map to assess how stream temperatures are expected to change and the impacts on native fish.

Freshmen enrolled in the Spaceship Earth Living Learning Community conduct research on a real project that is formulated and conducted during a 2-semester academic year.

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Produced by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, these four guides form a four-part series, Living With Biodiversity: What You Can Really Do For the Environment. The four guides in pdf format are: Biodiversity and Your Food, Biodiversity and Your Energy Use, Biodiversity and What You Buy and Biodiversity and Your Water Supply.

This unit will allow students to investigate the 1999 die-off of lobsters in the Long Island Sound. Students will understand the changes in the Long Island ecosystems over the years. They will also gain a deeper understanding of how systems are connected, particularly land and sea ecosystems, and the types of environmental influences that can influence the lobster population. This will allow students to gain a deeper understanding about the environment around them, develop scientific inquiry skills, and enhance their problem-solving skills.

This curriculum unit will allow students will learn about the role a variety of factors play in a watershed by examining the lobster die-off in the Long Island Sound. Students will become experts on the six major factors that scientists believe may have contributed to the lobster die-off including: bacterial infections that cause the breakdown of the exoskeleton, a parasite that attacks the nervous system, higher than normal water temperatures, environmental effects of pesticide and insecticide use, pollution, and changes in dissolved oxygen levels.

After learning about the various potential causes of the lobster die-off students will develop their own explanation citing evidence in order to defend what they believe caused this die-off.

This interactive visualization provides a clear, well-documented snapshot of current and projected values of several climate variables for local areas in California. The climate variables include observed and projected temperatures, projected snowpack, areas vulnerable to flooding due to sea level rise, and projected increase in wildfires. The projected values come from expert sources and well-established climate models.

Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

Several prospective Democratic presidential candidates travel along a canal in the "Salt River Barge," named after the proverbial river of political defeat. The passengers are (left to right): Lewis Cass, secretary of war William Marcy, Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas, former secretary of state James Buchanan, and Texas senator Sam Houston. Martin Van Buren, pictured as a fox, pulls the barge, saying, "Never fear my Coves. I'll carry you straight, for I am well acquainted with this Road!" Houston, seated on a barrel of "Cold Water" in the bow of the barge, holds a flag marked "Maine Liquor Law" with a crown at the top of the pole. The Maine Law of 1851 was a prohibition measure subsequently adopted by several other states. Houston says, "We dont travel quite so fast as I did in Texas once!" Behind him, Buchanan looks through a periscope and exclaims, "I dont know but it looks to me as if we had travelled this way before!" Douglas, noticeably shorter than the rest, complains, "These old Fogies are out of date Young America expects Progress! I am for the annexation of Cuba, Canada, Mexico, and Japan!" Douglas represented the Young America faction of the Democratic party, a youthful element which was, among other things, expansionist in nature. Marcy, with the "50 Cents" trouser patch (see "Executive Mercy/Marcy and the Bambers," no.1838-5), conjectures, "If Matty stands by me now I think with a little manouvering the chances are in my favor!" Finally Cass, lying on his back in the rear of the barge, instructs Buchanan to "Wake me up . . . if any thing in particular happens I'm going to take a nap." (This may be a comment on Cass's advanced age and/or his physical corpulence in 1852.) From the rear of the boat flies a banner marked "Intervintion," perhaps a reference to the Democrats' advocacy of nationalist and republican movements in Europe and the Caribbean, or more particularly to American efforts on behalf of Hungarian nationalist leader Louis Kossuth in 1850. The print must have appeared before the Democratic convention in early June 1852, when the aspirations of these hopefuls for the presidency were extinguished by the nomination of dark horse candidate Franklin Pierce. |Published by J. Childs 84 Nassau St. N. York.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 92-93.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1852-12.

A satire on the Democrats' or "Loco Focos'" 1852 pursuit of Franklin Pierce for the presidential nomination. At the foot of the White Mountains in the "Dismal Swamp," an immense, swampy region of North Carolina and Virginia, Pierce is pursued by Loco Foco hunters in military uniforms. Pierce has been chased up a dead tree by either a fox (an allusion to party warhorse Martin Van Buren, perhaps) or a dog. Several hunters make their way through the water and tall grass toward him. Pierce cries, "Gentlemen don't fire! if you please I cant stand the smell of Powder! it makes me feel faint even to think of it!!" (On Pierce's reputation for fainting in combat see "The Game-Cock & the Goose," no. 1852-18.) A hunter standing on a log at left comments, "What a place to come to, find a Candidate." Another (standing at right) replies, "Well it aint such a bad spot, when the party are hard up, here's where we started that famous Poke [i.e., James K. Polk] in 44." A third hunter asks, "Ain't we got first rate men enough outside of this? I never heard of that fellow before." At far right, a man holding up a hat answers, "Thats just what we want, a Candidate, that nobody ever heard of; the people know our big men too well ever to elect any of them." A crane flies off to the right. |For sale by Nathaniel Currier at No. 2 Spruce St. N.Y.|Signed with initials: H.O.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 111.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1852-35.

A satire touching on some of the major issues in Connecticut politics on the eve of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The two rival factions shown are the "Federals," who represented the trading interests and were for taxes on imports, and the "Antifederals," who represented agrarian interests and were more receptive to paper money issues. The two groups were also divided on the issue of commutation of military pensions. The artist here evidently sides with the Federals. Connecticut is symbolized by a wagon (top center) loaded with debts and paper money, the weight of which causes it to sink slowly into the mud. Its driver warns, "Gentlemen this Machine is deep in the mire and you are divided as to its releaf--" The wagon is pulled in opposite directions by two factions of the state's Council of Twelve. On the left under a beaming sun are five Federal councillors, who proclaim: "Pay Commutation," "Drive them to it," "I abhor the antifederal Faction," and "Comply with Congress." On the right the sky fills with angry storm clouds spewing thunderbolts, while the earth erupts in flames. Below six of the council's Antifederal members pull on their chain crying: "Tax Luxury," "the People are oprest," "curses on to Foederal Govermt.," "Success to Shays" (an allusion to charges that they sympathized with agrarian radicals led by Daniel Shay in Massachusetts), and "Curse Independence." The seventh Antifederal on the council, William Williams (here labeled with his press pseudonym "Agricola"), also appears. He stands defecating at right, with his trousers undone and a small animal--probably a skunk--between his feet. Williams remarks, "I fear & dread the Ides of May" (i.e. the May 15 elections to the upper house). The skunk sprays toward Williams's enemy Samuel Holden Parsons (far right, identified as "S--H--P"), president of the state's Society of the Cincinnati. Parsons, also obscenely bending over, sprays back saying, "A good Shot." In the left middleground, "Cato," a pseudonymous contributor to the "New Haven Gazette," comments, "I despise your Copper" to the man beside him, who holds a Connecticut coin and mutters, "Cur's commutation." In the center a farmer with a plough, rake, and bottle complains, "Takes all to pay taxes." In the left foreground three members of the Connecticut Wits stand on the Mount "Parnassus," and read from a scroll "American Antiquities" (excerpts from their "Anarchiad" published in Connecticut newspapers beginning in October 1786). To the right is the Connecticut shoreline and the buildings of Manhattan, the latter threatened by thunderbolts from the upper right. Three merchant vessels ply a body of water below, "From Connecticut to New York paying L40000 per annum Impost." In the left corner a tiny figure sits at a w7riting desk, reading a paper with the verse: "Tweedles Studdy/as I sit plodding by my taper." This piece alludes to a satirical poem by "Trustless Fox" in the "New Haven Gazette" of November 23, 1786. Its opening lines are: "As I sat plodding by my taper, I wreaked a glance into the paper . . . ." The interpretation given above is largely based on the commentary of a Sotheby's cataloger (see reference below). That writer suggests that "Trustless Fox" and the designer of "The Looking Glass for 1787" may have been one and the same, based on the references to material in the New Haven Press. |Attribution to Amos Doolittle is from the Sotheby's auction catalog.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Sotheby's "Fine Printed and Manuscript Americana." (Catalog of the auction sale April 16, 1988). New York: Sotheby's, 1988, no. 44.|Weitenkampf, p. 11.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1787-1.|Exhibited in: Creating the United States, Library of Congress, 2008.

Joan Mitchell’s “Low Water” is an abstract oil painting featuring vibrant colors, dynamic brushwork and dripping fields of paint that draw you in both physically and emotionally. Influenced by the color and beauty of her surroundings, Mitchell often painted complex, captivating landscapes that were extensions of her own memories. Watch Eric Crosby, Director at Carnegie Museum of Art, explore what makes “Low Water” a masterpiece. Video by Bank of America. Created by Smarthistory.