This activity is a field investigation where students observe, predict, and gather data on steam velocity, erosion, and discharge.

Students observe capillary action in glass tubes of varying sizes. Then they use the capillary action to calculate the surface tension in each tube. They find the average surface tensions and calculate the statistical errors.

This activity is an guided inquiry based lesson where students measure and graph data on a two-coordinate graph the growth of a toy animal submerged in water over a period of time.

Marie Hartford's class of 5th grade scientists learn about the importance of water quality and its benefits to wildlife and the environment. Within the narrow confines of pH necessary for their tank of red-legged frogs, students use a combination of pond and tap water to keep the tank healthy, using their collected data to make the decision on the proportion between the two.

In this seminar you will inventory your knowledge of cellular transport and learn to organize the transport types based on energy requirements. There are many activities in the Engage section, each with a specific concentration in a type of transport. Your participation in a simple virtual lab wil help you quickly observe results to aid in understanding concentration gradients and the movement of material across a cellular membrane.StandardsBIO.A.2.2.3 Compare and contrast the structure and function of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids in organisms.BIO.A.4.2.1 Explain how organisms maintain homeostasis (e.g., thermoregulation, water regulation, oxygen regulation).BIO.A.4.1.2 Compare and contrast the mechanisms that transport materials across the plasma membrane (i.e., passive transport -- diffusion, osmosis, facilitated diffusion; active transport -- pumps, endocytosis, exocytosis).BIO.A.4.1.1 Describe how the structure of the plasma membrane allows it to function as a regulatory structure and/or protective barrier for a cell.

This kit explores how sustainability within the Finger Lakes region of New York has been presented in the media with a particular focus on issues related to food, water and agriculture. Each of the seven lessons integrates media literacy and critical thinking with key knowledge and concepts related to sustainability. This kit is a companion to the nineteen-lesson collection, Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water and Agriculture.

This kit explores how sustainability has been presented in the media with a particular focus on issues related to food, water and agriculture. Each of the 19 lessons integrates media literacy and critical thinking into lessons about different aspect of sustainability. Constant themes throughout the kit include social justice, climate change, energy, economics and unintended consequences.

Interactive cards with gasses portrayed as super heroes are provided for Water Vapor, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Ozone, Nitrous Oxide, and Chlorofluorocarbons. On one side of the card is an explanation of how the gas is in its natural form and by clicking on the card, it flips to reveal the impact it has on the atmosphere.

This formative assessment item uncovers student ideas and misconceptions about melting icebergs. It determines if students believe that water levels will rise due to melting icebergs. Resources provided will assist teachers. It gives instructional support as well as information for teachers. This probe is aligned to National Science Education Standards (NSES).

This video is accompanied by supporting materials including background essay and discussion questions. The focus is on changes happening to permafrost in the Arctic landscape, with Alaska Native peoples and Western scientists discussing both the causes of thawing and its impact on the ecosystem. The video shows the consequences of erosion, including mudslides and inland lakes being drained of water. An Inuit expresses his uncertainty about the ultimate effect this will have on his community and culture.

Explore how melting of ice cubes floating in water is influenced by the salinity of the water. Important oceanographic concepts like density and density driven currents are visualized and can be discussed on the basis of this experiment.

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Included in the activity description
Metacognitive components of the activity
Describing one's thoughts to another person requires the problem-solver to listen and attend to their own thoughts as well. The questions and clarifications that the listener describes is yet another window into the problem-solver's thinking.
Metacognitive goals for this activity:
Promote reflective thinking, communication skills, better reasoning, listening skills, and better problem-solving and conceptual understanding.
Assessing students' metacognition
There have been several studies of this instructional strategy. I have used it in my own instruction of mathematics and science for more than 25 years.

(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.)

Metagenomics, the genomic analysis of microbial communities from samples like water and soil, involves high-throughput sequencing of the microbial DNA, collecting, archiving and re-sharing the genomic data for taxonomic and functional analysis.

By the end of the course you will be able to:
Conduct appropriate quality control and decontamination of metagenomic data and run simple assembly pipelines on short-read data
Utilise public datasets and resources to identify relevant data for analysis
Apply appropriate tools in the analysis of metagenomic data
Submit metagenomics data to online repositories for sharing and future analysis
Apply relevant knowledge in strain resolution and comparative metagenomic analysis to their own research

Students design systems that use microbes to break down a water pollutant (in this case, sugar). They explore how temperature affects the rate of pollutant decomposition.

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:

"A fish's health is a reflection of its environment Healthy waters produce healthy fish While understanding how environmental factors like pollution affect fish populations can be extremely difficult researchers are beginning to find answers by exploring the one feature that separates fish from their environment their skin The diverse microbial community that resides on fish's skin is like a living almanac recording entire histories of environmental changes, both good and bad Using genetic barcoding, researchers recently discovered how human disturbances are imprinted by the microbiota on fish skin For streams along the Jordan River, the team found that nutrient dumping was linked to the abundance of certain bacteria namely, Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes providing one way of finding sites affected by transient nutrient pollution This powerful new method could be critical in gauging the status of both fish and the water they inhabit as the microbial communities that thrive on fish skin capture environmental.."

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

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:

"Researchers are using plant microbes as microsensors of plant health. In recent experiments, they irrigated tomato and lettuce with either fresh water or treated wastewater and used DNA analysis to examine how microbes in the plants’ roots responded. They found that microbes expressed genes associated with different forms of environmental stress such as high salt levels, high pH, and low oxygen. These stress signals can’t always be detected in plants alone making this genetic profiling of plant microbes a useful method for detecting hidden stressors..."

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

Microorganisms are the most abundant form of life on Earth and in recent decades it has become increasingly clear that their collective activities are one of the dominant forces shaping the planet.

This book provides earth scientists with an introduction to microbiology and a look at the ways microorganisms are important to their area of expertise. The first part of this book summarizes some basic information about microorganisms, including a discussion of their diversity, physical properties, and metabolisms. From there, the second and third portions of the book are organized around the two-way interactions between microorganisms and their environments. The second portion of the book considers the ways that environmental conditions help determine distributions of microbial activity, including chapters focused on thermodynamic, kinetic, and biological factors. The third and final portion of the book examines the impacts of microbes on their environments. These impacts are placed within the context of earth system science, with chapters focused on impacts to the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. In these chapters, emphasis is placed on microbial impacts to greenhouse gas levels and the quality of water resources, underscoring the relevance of microbiology to environmental concerns of keen interest in the earth science community and beyond.

This book is specifically designed for earth science students and can provide a helpful free resource for students in Geomicrobiology courses. However, portions of the book can also have value for students and professionals from any field who are interested in environmental microbiology.

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:

"Litopenaeus vannamei, or Pacific white shrimp, is the most productive shrimp species in the aquaculture industry. The health of the larval microbiome has long-term implications for the health of adult shrimp. However, assembly of the microbiome during larval development is not well understood. In a new study, researchers used 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to characterize the microbiome of shrimp larvae over time. They found that the assembly of taxa was largely governed by neutral processes — dispersal among larvae and ecological drift. The alpha-diversity and taxa complexity showed a U-shaped pattern, with the highest diversity and complexity at the early and late stages of development. During zoea stage, the larval microbiome was most associated with that of the surrounding water. From the mouth-opening stage forward, Rhodobacteraceae became the dominant taxa. This study will help researchers and farmers understand how to protect the health of shrimp cultures through their growth period..."

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

Students will use micro:bit to create a step tracker that also provides reminder to drink water every so many steps.

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:

"Wastewater treatment plants are a critical piece of infrastructure that depend on microbes, both resident and incoming. Incoming microbes can be beneficial but may include parasites that need to be removed. Resident microbes, meanwhile, help break down organic waste. While much is known about bacteria in wastewater treatment plants, eukaryotes are frequently overlooked. Recently, researchers examined the whole microbiome of 10 wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland. They utilized metagenomics to measure which microbes were present and metatranscriptomics to analyze their activity. Bacteria were the most numerous— but eukaryotes, particularly protists, showed the most activity, and there was a surprising number and range of active parasites, which were particularly prevalent in the inflow. Network analysis suggested predation by resident microbes likely helped remove parasites..."

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