The lesson activity titles are:

What are systems? (Purpose: to have students understand what a "system" is, in the broadest sense)
How is the natural environment of the tribal community a system? (Purpose: to tie what students learned during the year about the tribal community and its natural environment to the concept of what a "system" is)
How did settlers of European descent change the tribe's ecosystem? (Purpose: to explore the connections between what European settlers did to the tribe's ecosystem and what the effects have been on the ecosystem)
What can be done? What should be done? (Purpose: to explore and evaluate policy options for future environmental sustenance)

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The Lifestyle Project is a way for students to learn about environmental alternatives by modifying their own lifestyles. It is a three-week exercise for students to reduce their impact on the environment by changing the way in which they live from day to day. The project has fairly rigid parameters, allowing students to achieve a gradual but definitive change in their everyday habits. Students choose three categories from a list of six: heat, garbage, electricity and water, driving, eating, and activism. For each category the rules are clearly defined, such as turning down the heat three degrees or eliminating the use of the car. Each week the project becomes more rigorous, because students will have to meet the requirements more frequently. They write about their experiences in journals, which are incredibly insightful, illustrating just how profoundly the project affects them.

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The project is used in two courses, both with the theme of understanding the environmental implications of our use of energy, exploring personal energy use, and learning about the types of energy available to Canadians. One is a face-to-face course for Education majors, the other is an on-line course available to all upper-level (3rd and 4th year) students.

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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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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.

In this lab students will explore first hand what sorts of processes occur when scientists and engineers try to identify a landing site for a mission to Mars. This will mimic the process used to select the MER rover landing sites, and what will be used for future missions. First, students briefly become a planetary geologist, engineer or astrobiologist. Second, from the point of view the students feel is appropriate for their new position, and using the same constraints employed by the scientific teams preparing for forthcoming Mars missions, students will identify their top list of candidate landing sites and submit a short report describing them to me by the following class period. Third, in the following class period, all three groups of experts will work together to narrow down the site selection to a top candidate. Where would you send the next lander if the choice was up to you?
Each student group, constituted randomly, is provided with the appropriate role-playing sheet from the lab assignment.

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The Office for Climate Education (OCE) launches an innovative online course: an opportunity for teachers all over the world to learn how to teach about climate change online and for free.

Dissolved ions are present in all freshwater systems, but humans can change the chemical composition of freshwater in several ways. In this activity, students will examine the concentration of major ions in freshwater systems over time and reason about potential drivers of these changes.

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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.

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.

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This course, Measurements for Water is in Dutch, but the following parts are in English:Lectures: Waterbalans Water balance)ReadingsDit vak gaat in op het hoe te doen van typische metingen op het vakgebied van gezondheidstechniek (waterkwaliteit), hydrologie, waterbeheer, waterbouw en vloeistofmechanica (waterkwantiteit).Onderdelen hierin zijn: het herkennen van de relevante parameters, leren over meetmethodes, meetapparatuur, nauwkeurigheid, opstellen van een meetplan, veiligheid, het zelf doen van metingen (laboratorium e/o in het veld) en bewerken en verwerken van gegevens.In een workshop wordt er geleerd met beschikbare electronica componenten een eigen meetsensor te bouwen.Leerdoelen- In staat zijn aan te geven welke parameters van belang zijn bij een bepaald proces- In staat zijn aan te geven hoe de parameters gemeten kunnen worden- Geschikte meetapparatuur kunnen kiezen- Een meetplan kunnen maken (uitvoering, tijd, duur, kosten, veiligheid)- Basis principes electronica in de meettechniek begrijpen en kunnen toepassen

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

This lesson will begin by introducing students to the impact of the interaction of the hydrologic and rock cycles on Earth's materials. Students will categorize the mechanical and chemical impacts of the hydrologic cycle on Earth's lithosphere using a jot chart. Students will participate in an outdoor geologic field study to locate examples of mechanical and chemical effects of the hydrologic cycle on their school's grounds. Lastly, students will analyze and interpret the data gathered during the geologic field study through the creation of a bar and circle graph. This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

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.

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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 stream field investigation will allow students to look at stream erosional patterns, take measurements to determine discharge, and conduct a chemical and turbidity analysis of Garvin Brook in Stockton, MN. Based on this investigation students will create a presentation that includes a new testable question that may be carried out the following year along with a stream ecology study.

Students explore how different materials (sand, gravel, lava rock) with different water contents on different slopes result in landslides of different severity. They measure the severity by how far the landslide debris extends into model houses placed in the flood plain. This activity is a small-scale model of a debris chute currently being used by engineers and scientists to study landslide characteristics. Much of this activity setup is the same as for the Survive That Tsunami activity in Lesson 5 of the Natural Disasters unit.

This unit is to be taught as an extension to the FOSS WATER INVESTIGATION 1, Part 3, WATER ON A SLOPE. After learning that water flows down a slope, students will understand that this concept determines how our watersheds flow. It will also explain why some rivers (such as the Red River) appear to be flowing "up" on a map. They will then create a landform map of Minnesota accurately representing the higher elevations (our RIDGELINES) and the location of our major rivers and bodies of water. This unit can also be extended by many of the activities in the Project Wild and the MinnAqua Lesson Books.

In this exercise, students use their intuition to enumerate similarities and differences between groundwater flow and oil migration. The activity is divided into two parts: (1) brainstorming of ideas, and (2) an expanded discussion of selected topics. The instructor begins by briefly reviewing the Rules of Brainstorming and then soliciting answers to a question such as: "How is the flow of groundwater in an aquifer similar to or different from the movement of oil in a petroleum reservoir?" The instructor records the similarities and differences suggested by students in two lists. After a sufficient quantity of responses has been gathered, the instructor chooses certain ideas for closer examination and discussion. (The instructor may decide on target topics in advance, or may choose to 'go with the flow' to explore interesting ideas that emerge from the students.) The activity gives students the opportunity to connect the disciplines of hydrogeology and petroleum geology, with particular emphasis on the concepts of multiphase flow, relative permeability, and saturation distributions at the water table and oil-water contacts.

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As Public Works Director of Nogales, Arizona, Alejandro Barcenas works to ensure a safe and secure water supply for the city’s 20,500 residents. His task isn’t easy: the city is located in an arid region just north of the United States–Mexico border, and its entire supply comes from groundwater.

Half of Nogales’ water comes from alluvial aquifers that are highly responsive to rainfall events. Though this convenient source of water recharges easily, it is also vulnerable to climate-related changes such as reduced precipitation and increased evaporation. The other half of the city’s groundwater comes from a lower-quality source—this water is more expensive to produce. To optimize the use of the two sources of groundwater into the future, Barcenas is contributing to the development of a modeling tool that simulates how the aquifers may change in response to climate.