This activity runs over two classroom sessions with a take-home assignment in between. During the initial classroom meeting students investigate the properties of minerals that would be make them suitable for use as a pigment in a water-based paint (streak, hardness, solubility). Students then work with natural materials, including powdered minerals, to make a palette of gouache paints (opaque watercolors) which students can keep.

Over the next week, students conduct online research to find a culture (past or present) that incorporates the class's limited color palette into their painted artifacts, and emulates their art form to create an art object using their paint. Students conduct research on the region and culture through a geological lens: where are they located? What is the climate? What is the general physiography (mountainous, volcanic, plains, etc)? Where do they get their pigments? Do the colors/paints have symbolic/spiritual meaning? What use/meaning would your homemade artifact have in this culture? This information is compiled into an abstract-like form, to be written up as a curatorial display tag in a museum gallery. In addition they must mark the location in which their culture exists on a blank world map.
In week two, students display their works around the classroom, and post their "curatorial tag" and map beside their display. Students are asked to organize themselves (and their displays) by geographic region, in order to initiate student conversation and to place the exercise in a geographic context. In a gallery walk fashion, students examine each other's work, and document similarities and differences between the environments and styles, and the consistency of the limited palette of black-white-red/brown-yellow-(green). The class ends with an instructor-led discussion of the ubiquity of these colors due to the ubiquity of certain minerals in the sedimentary environment (white clay, hematite, limonite, along with charcoal), and leads into a discussion of mineral formation by weathering.

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Children are interest in mesuring, touching, "cooking", and being creative in an activity "Making Playdough"Children will learn about ingredients: flour, salt, colors, warm water, oilTools: pot, big spoon, mesuring cups 

This article discusses the reading instruction strategy of predicting and shows how it applies to science learning in the elementary school grades. It appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which provides a first introduction to the Seven Essential Principles of Climate Literacy.

This activity is a field investigation where students gather and observe macroinvertebrates in a pond system. From their initial observations, students will formulate a question and test procedures.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Thousands of mosquito species inhabit our planet, and for most, surface water is essential to their life cycles. Despite this, many species seem to persist in areas with long dry seasons – even when no water is available to support new offspring. To uncover the tactics mosquitoes use to endure these seasons, a U.S.-based research team has begun pinpointing the environmental cues the insects rely on to detect approaching dry weather. By exposing the insects to these cues in the lab, they’ve uncovered some of the strategies mosquitoes use to survive. The team focused on two species that transmit human malaria: Anopheles arabiensis and Anopheles coluzzii. In their home range of sub-Saharan Africa, both species withstand annual dry seasons lasting from 4 to 7 months. Anopheles arabiensis is thought to accomplish this through long-distance migration from areas with permanent standing water..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

In the Arizona desert, farmers depend on an ample supply of irrigation to grow their crops. As climate changes, irrigation managers face a host of issues to keep the water flowing.

Where the tropical ocean meets the sea, a peculiar kind of plant thrives in shallow, salty water. These mangrove plants are incredibly important for shoreline protection and baby fish habitats. In this video, Jonathan investigates life in mangroves by visiting both Caribbean and Pacific mangroves. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

In this activity, students will learn the difference between sea ice and glaciers in relation to sea level rise. They will create and explore topographic maps as a means of studying sea level rise and how it will affect Alaska's coastline.

The Mangrove Mapping Curricula strives to provide opportunities for students to learn about and explore mangroves and their ecosystems. Through this process it is hoped that students develop and understanding and appreciation for mangroves and the role they play in a healthy environment. Mangroves are group of tropical/subtropical trees that live in salt or sweet (salt/fresh water combination) water coastal environments. They are considered a cornerstone species and play important roles in habitat formation and stabilization of coastal environments.

During this lesson, students will recount a Paul Bunyan tall tale, an entertaining way to identify bodies of water and landforms in the United States. Although Paul Bunyan's Tales did not focus on Alabama, students will create their own narratives after viewing photographs of major mountain ranges, rivers, and lakes throughout Alabama (ACOS 3.2). This lesson will utilize ol der maps of the United States and Alabama, which are used to remind us that this folk tale was handed down orally until the early 1900s when a newspaper printed several accounts of the tall tale. This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Ruminants have long been important in agriculture due to their ability to convert fibrous plant substrates into foods we can digest, like milk and meat. This unique digestive ability is directly tied to their gastrointestinal microbiome, which has made their microbiome a subject of interest to nutritionists, microbiologists, and physiologists. However, most microbiome research to date has focused on the rumen, and we lack a comprehensive map of the microbial diversity throughout their gastrointestinal tract (GIT). A recent study characterized the microbiome across the GIT by sampling 10 GIT regions in 7 ruminant species. In addition to common agricultural species, they sampled water buffalo, yak, roe deer, and water deer. Using this data, they constructed a microbial reference catalog with over 154 million nonredundant genes and over 10,000 metagenome-assembled genomes. They identified 8,745 uncultured candidate species, which encode genes that play key roles in ruminant digestion..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course is an introduction to chemical oceanography. It describes reservoir models and residence time, major ion composition of seawater, inputs to and outputs from the ocean via rivers, the atmosphere, and the sea floor. Biogeochemical cycling within the oceanic water column and sediments, emphasizing the roles played by the formation, transport, and alteration of oceanic particles and the effects that these processes have on seawater composition. Cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, and sulfur. Uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the ocean. Material presented through lectures and student-led presentation and discussion of recent papers.

The structure of the course is designed to have students acquire a broad understanding of the field of Marine Chemistry; to get a feel for experimental methodologies, the results that they have generated and the theoretical insights they have yielded to date.

The objective of this course is to develop an understanding of principles of marine isotope geochemistry, its systematics, and its application to the study of the behavior and history of the oceans within the earth system. The emphasis is on developing the underlying concepts and theory as well as proficiency in working with practical isotope systems. The course is divided into four sections: nuclear systematics, Earth formation and evolution, stable isotopes, and applications to the ocean system.

The marine environment is unique and because little light penetrates under water, technologies that use sound are required to gather information. The seafloor is characterized using underwater sound and acoustical systems. Current technological innovations enable scientists to further understand and apply information about animal locations and habitat. Remote sensing and exploration with underwater vehicles enables researchers to map and understand the sea floor. Similar technologies also aid in animal tracking, a method used within science and commercial industries. Through inquiry-based learning techniques, students learn the importance of habitat mapping and animal tracking.

Using this resource, create a standalone learning module, lesson, assignment, assessment or activity.

Edited by Sarah Hare, Jessica Kirschner, and Michelle Reed

Short Description:
This collaboratively authored guide helps institutions navigate the uncharted waters of tagging course material as open educational resources (OER) or under a low-cost threshold by summarizing relevant state legislation, providing tips for working with stakeholders, and analyzing technological and process considerations. The first half of the book provides high-level analysis of the technology, legislation, and cultural change needed to operationalize course markings. The second half features case studies by Alexis Clifton, Rebel Cummings-Sauls, Michael Daly, Juville Dario-Becker, Tony DeFranco, Cindy Domaika, Ann Fiddler, Andrea Gillaspy Steinhilper, Rajiv Jhangiani, Brian Lindshield, Andrew McKinney, Nathan Smith, and Heather White.

Word Count: 81517

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Edited by Sarah Hare, Jessica Kirschner, and Michelle Reed

Short Description:
This collaboratively authored guide helps institutions navigate the uncharted waters of tagging course material as open educational resources (OER) or under a low-cost threshold by summarizing relevant state legislation, providing tips for working with stakeholders, and analyzing technological and process considerations. The first half of the book provides high-level analysis of the technology, legislation, and cultural change needed to operationalize course markings. The second half features case studies by Alexis Clifton, Rebel Cummings-Sauls, Michael Daly, Juville Dario-Becker, Tony DeFranco, Cindy Domaika, Ann Fiddler, Andrea Gillaspy Steinhilper, Rajiv Jhangiani, Brian Lindshield, Andrew McKinney, Nathan Smith, and Heather White.

Word Count: 81533

ISBN: 978-1-64816-983-0

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Students should research and define terminology included in the exercise (example - drainage basin) prior to lab. Pre-lab lecture should include basic concepts of hydrology (stream networks, basins) and an example of Strahler Stream Order. Students in a GIS-capable class can follow the instructions to create relevant maps and datasets. Students in introductory (non-GIS) classes should use pre-printed figures and tracing paper to complete the exercises.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

A symbolic figure in the American Revolutionary War, the woman known as “Molly Pitcher” reportedly brought water to the troops at the Battle of Monmouth and worked the cannon after her husband was wounded.

This resource is from a collection of biographies of famous women. It is provided by the National Women's History Museum, and may include links to supplemental materials including lesson plans about the subject and related topics, links to related biographies, and "works cited" pages. The biographies are sponsored by Susan D. Whiting.