Grounded in the belief that students need to explore climate change for themselves, the high school-level Climate Project course from the OER Project equips students with the knowledge and skills to take action. The course aims to understand the climate crisis by examining facts, impacts, and solutions, fostering civic action, education, and career readiness, and promoting constructive discussion. Through an inquiry-based approach, students interrogate diverse sources, build data and digital literacy skills, and engage with timely materials. Flexible in design, the course can be taught as a comprehensive semester program or through standalone lessons, culminating in projects ranging from climate-focused careers to community civic action.

The Software Tools for Academics and Researchers (STAR) program at MIT seeks to bridge the divide between scientific research and the classroom. Understanding and applying research methods in the classroom setting can be challenging due to time constraints and the need for advanced equipment and facilities. The multidisciplinary STAR team collaborates with faculty from MIT and other educational institutions to design software exploring core scientific research concepts. The goal of STAR is to develop innovative and intuitive teaching tools for classroom use.
All of the STAR educational tools are freely available. To complement the educational software, the STAR website contains curriculum components/modules which can facilitate the use of STAR educational tools in a variety of educational settings. Students, teachers, and professors should feel welcome to download software and curriculum modules for their own use.
Online Publication

Schrauben lösen, Kabel neu verlegen: Messer, Gabel und Pudelmütze werden zum Input für den Computer. Ziel ist es, neue Benutzerschnittstellen für den Computer zu entwickeln, indem die TeilnehmerInnen einen Blick "unter die Motorhaube" einer USB-Tastatur werfen. So können Jugendliche im Alter von 13 - 17 Jahren erste Schritte im kreativen Umgang mit Elektronik machen und dabei viel Spaß haben.

Voraussetzungen sind lediglich die Freude am Experimentieren und die Neugier, technologische Grundlagen spielerisch zu erlernen.

Interval training is a great way to keep your class fast paced, students engaged and they are easy to apply to future assessment tools.  Incorporate fun music and your students will be asking to do tabata's once a week.  (We call it Tabata Tuesday in my classes)

This video discusses how methane digesters turn waste from dairy cows, food garbage, and other organic matter into usable gases and other fuels.

In this activity, students play the role of energy consultants to a CEO, assessing and documenting the feasibility, cost, and environmental impact of installing solar power on 4 company facilities with the same design but in different geographical locations.

This activity is a classroom investigation where the students create, in size and distance, a solar system model in proportion to a selected sphere representing the earth.

This animation illustrates how heat energy from deep in Earth can be utilized to generate electricity at a large scale.

This class introduces the student to the use of small telescopes, either for formal research or as a hobby.
This course covers background for and techniques of visual observation, electronic imaging, and spectroscopy of the Moon, planets, satellites, stars, and brighter deep-space objects. Weekly outdoor observing sessions using 8-inch diameter telescopes when weather permits. Indoor sessions introduce needed skills. Introduction to contemporary observational astronomy including astronomical computing, image and data processing, and how astronomers work. Student must maintain a careful and complete written log which is graded. (Limited enrollment with priority to freshmen. Consumes an entire evening each week; 100% attendance at observing sessions required to pass.)

Play with a 1D or 2D system of coupled mass-spring oscillators. Vary the number of masses, set the initial conditions, and watch the system evolve. See the spectrum of normal modes for arbitrary motion. See longitudinal or transverse modes in the 1D system.

Solar Physicist Dr. Kelly Korreck tells the story of her career from a young University of Michigan undergraduate student to being a Solar Physicist for the NASA Parker Solar Probe.

In this unit, students will identify mass extinctions as paleontologists have done and recognize and understand the "pull of the recent," that is, the human tendency to know more about events closer to the present. Students prepare by reading an article prior to class that describes mass extinctions. At the beginning of class, students place historical events along a physical model of the geologic timescale. Next, they examine a diagram showing changes in biodiversity across the last 542 million years and identify patterns in those data. Students and the instructor then finish class by discussing that although fossils (and rocks) are critical for explaining the present and predicting the future, their mechanisms of preservation biases our understanding of Earth's past.

(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.)

This video segment adapted from NOVA relates the dramatic story of vulcanologists trying to predict the timing of the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.

This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to show the relationship between the movement of a tectonic plate and whether volcanoes on the Hawaiian Islands are active or dormant.

This is a book containing over 200 problems spanning over 70 specific topic areas covered in a typical Algebra II course. Learners can encounter a selection of application problems featuring astronomy, earth science and space exploration, often with more than one example in a specific category. Learners will use mathematics to explore science topics related to a wide variety of NASA science and space exploration endeavors. Each problem or problem set is introduced with a brief paragraph about the underlying science, written in a simplified, non-technical jargon where possible. Problems are often presented as a multi-step or multi-part activities. This book can be found on the Space Math@NASA website.

This is an activity about the atmospheric conditions (greenhouse strength, atmospheric thickness) Mars needs to maintain surface water. Learners will use a computer interactive to learn about Mars past and present before exploring the pressure and greenhouse strength needed for Mars to have a watery surface as it had in the past. This lesson is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering education program focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists are on the hunt for tornadoes. Using Doppler radar, they gather data in the hopes of solving the mystery of how tornadoes form.

This lesson includes a powerpoint lecture and problem in-class exercise/assignment with corresponding solutions about thermochemistry.

This second introductory lesson in GeoMapApp begins with a historical look at methods of surveying the seafloor, from lead line surveys to modern multibeam and side-scan sonar. Then, a series of instructions takes students trough the bathymetric tools of GeoMapApp. Activity includes both student and instructor versions.

(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.)

Learn about position, velocity, and acceleration in the "Arena of Pain". Use the green arrow to move the ball. Add more walls to the arena to make the game more difficult. Try to make a goal as fast as you can.