Experiment with a helium balloon, a hot air balloon, or a rigid sphere filled with different gases. Discover what makes some balloons float and others sink.

Students explore static electricity by rubbing a simulated balloon on a sweater. As they view the charges in the sweater, balloon, and adjacent wall, they gain an understanding of charge transfer. This item is part of a larger collection of simulations developed by the Physics Education Technology project (PhET). The simulations are animated, interactive, and game-like environments.

Why does a balloon stick to your sweater? Rub a balloon on a sweater, then let go of the balloon and it flies over and sticks to the sweater. View the charges in the sweater, balloons, and the wall.

This video segment describes how the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as Lucy could have been fossilized. Footage courtesy of NOVA: "In Search of Human Origins."

This course explores the physical, ecological, technological, political, economic, and cultural implications of big plans and mega-urban landscapes in a global context. It uses local and international case studies to understand the process of making major changes to urban landscape and city fabric, and to regional landscape systems. It includes lectures by leading practitioners. The assignments consider planning and design strategies across multiple scales and time frames.

This ZOOM video segment shows how to create a self-contained environment and explores evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.

This interactive resource adapted from NASA describes the different temperature, precipitation, and vegetation patterns in seven biomes: coniferous forest, temperate deciduous forest, desert, grassland, rainforest, shrubland, and tundra.

The purpose of this resource is to quantitatively evaluate the accuracy of a classification system. Students sort birds into three possible classes based on each bird's beak: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Students compare their answers with a given set of validation data.

This lithograph shows the break-off of a large iceberg from the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica. This event occurred between November 4th and 12th, 2001, and provides powerful evidence of rapid changes underway in this area of Antarctica. The images were acquired by the MISR instrument onboard NASA's Terra spacecraft.

What is a black hole? How is it formed? And where are they?

In this video, learn from Space Science specialist Douglas Equils about one of the most massive and mysterious things in our universe, black holes.

In this lesson students investigate the effects of black carbon on arctic warming and are introduced to a mechanism of arctic warming that is not directly dependent on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere: black carbon deposition on Arctic snow and ice. It can also be used to introduce the concept of albedo. Prerequisite knowledge: students understand the concepts of absorption and reflection of light energy. This lesson is designed to be used with either an Earth/environmental science or chemistry curriculum. It may also be used as an enrichment activity in physics or physical science during a unit on energy. Includes suggested modifications for students with special needs and low technology option. Requires advance preparation, including freezing ice samples overnight.

This resource was created by Tessa Janssen in collaboration with Crystal Hurt as part of the 2019-20 ESU-NDE Digital Age Pedagogy Project. Educators worked with coaches to create Unit Plans promoting BlendEd Learning Best Practices. This Unit Plan is designed for 4th Grade to explore the changes to the Earth's surface. 

This resource was created by Terresa Greenleaf, in collaboration with Dawn DeTurk, Hannah Blomstedt, and Julie Albrecht, as part of ESU2's Integrating the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education, practice, and coaching.

This learning video uses a simple analog setup to explore why earthquakes are so unpredictable. The setup is simple enough that students should be able to assemble and operate it on their own with a teacher's supervision. The teaching approach used in this module is known as the 5E approach, which stands for Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation. Over the course of this lesson, the basic mechanisms that give rise to the behavior of the simple analog system are explained, and further elaboration helps the students to apply their understanding of the analog system to complex fault systems that cause earthquakes

This math example explains what celestial objects a person can see with the unaided eye from the vantage points of Earth and Mars, using simple math, algebra and astronomical distance information. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

This online lab exercise focuses on the processes involved in the Carbon cycle and the influences of human activity on those processes- especially as they relate to Earth's weather and climate. The fourth in a 10-part lab series on weather and climate, this lab exercise is designed for first and second year college geoscience students (majors and non-majors) as well as pre-service STEM teachers.

Students will learn that there is a finite amount of carbon on earth, which moves around in the environment, from one place to another. Activity is scaleable from elementary to high school with options to introduce advanced content. Wrap up includes role playing the carbon cycle with the addition of human influences (e.g. burning of fossil fuels). Activity can be done in classroom or outside, includes working in a group and role playing. Grades 3-12. This resources is part of the Our Changing Ocean and Estuaries Series

This module provides an overview of the biogeochemical carbon cycle. Major sources and sinks of carbon are discussed as well as the impact of human activities on global carbon levels.

This lesson attempts to correct the common misconception that the Earth is closer to the Sun during the summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Proceeding from student preconceptions, small groups participate in an exploration of the cause of the seasons using a basketball, small globes and a lamp. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

This lesson addresses the common student misconception that the Earth is closer to the Sun during the summer in the Northern Hemisphere. This lesson encourages students to voice this misconception at the beginning of the lesson and then attempts to correct it-first, by exploring the reason for it, and then by presenting an alternate explanation. Materials needed for the demonstration include a small globe and a desk lamp for each group of students, a large ball, and overhead transparency. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.