This video segment, adapted from NOVA, describes the energy flow in a coral reef, including its food web.

This open course for Plants, Society, and the Environment was created under a Round Six ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Topics include cell structure, photosynthesis, taxonomy, biomes, domestication, agriculture, and medicine.

In this three to four class unit, students will:

Assess the case for a global water crisis and its relevance in America.
Expand their understanding of sustainability as a contestable concept and movement.
Consider water resource-management objectives through the lens of sustainability.
Analyze region-specific examples of unsustainable use of water for agriculture.

This is largely achieved via student discussion and evaluation of texts and statistics provided to them. The text and statistics are derived from a variety of disciplines, mostly not from the geosciences. As such, the unit is very interdisciplinary, requiring students to synthesize disparate information and take a holistic perspective on water issues.

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Prior to reaching households, water is exposed to a variety of treatments designed to render it fit for human consumption and use. One of the first treatment steps is the removal of suspended solids using chemical additives called flocculants. In this activity, students learn about two commonly used flocculants and clean water collected from a local pond or river. They experiment with flocculant, stirring and pH variables.

Through this lab, students are introduced to energy sciences as they explore redox reactions and how hydrogen fuel cells turn the energy released when hydrogen and oxygen are combined into electrical energy that can be read on a standard multimeter. They learn about the energy stored in bonds and how, by controlling the reaction, this energy can be turned into more or less useful forms.

In this activity, students review techniques used by scientists as they analyze a 50-year temperature time series dataset. The exercise helps students understand that data typically has considerable variability from year to year and to predict trends, one needs to consider long-term data.

How much of an impact does air travel have on climate change? What can be done about it? Through a hands-on demonstration and a short literature review, students consider the impacts and future of aviation. With data, students consider why climate communicators and scientists focus on carbon dioxide. This guide is an extension of the TILclimate episode "TIL about planes."

This video demonstrates students measuring the transparency of water, a measure of water quality, using a Secchi disk or turbidity tube. Field measurements of water temperature are also shown. The resource includes a video and a written transcript, and is supported by the Water Transparency and Temperature Protocols in the GLOBE Teacher's Guide. This is one of seven videos on hydrology in the 24-part instructional video series describing scientific protocols used by GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment), a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

In this virtual professional development opportunity designed for teachers, participants will have a chance to authentically engage with activities and experts as they grow their understanding of how climate change has and will impact their community. Teachers analyze and interpret recent climate science data and progress understanding on the most salient climate change indicators in Washington. Additionally, teachers explore the efforts to conserve and protect a local species, its cultural significance and how these efforts are indicative of a greater effort to address climate change. Teachers leave this training with increased preparedness to leverage a local species or climate change impact in their classroom to spur action in their community. Contact EarthGen at info@earthgenwa.org for more information.

In this activity, students analyze data detailing global energy sources and sinks (uses) and construct a diagram to show the relative scale and the connections between them. Discussions of scale; historical, socio-environmental, and geographic variation in this data; and implications for future energy use are included.

This investigation begins with a phenomenon that is evidenced in most every produce aisle: Many of the vegetables that botanists classify as Brassica look and taste different. This investigation aligns with middle and high school Next Generation Science Standards as well as with agricultural science Plant Career Path Standards. Provided as an Open Source Lesson in Gather-Reason-Communicate format, this investigation supports teachers as students learn about the life cycle of flowering plants, how environmental and genetic factors influence an organisms's growth, how humans influence plants through plant breeding, and how scientists can use classification as a tool for understanding relatedness among organisms. This includes a lesson plan and supporting resources including videos, an interview, readings, and protocols.

Learn about root systems of trees in the Congaree Swamp National Park in this video segment from NatureScene.

This series of 7 captioned images depict sources, causes and results of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. This lesson is part of the Climate Kids website, a NASA education resource featuring articles, videos, images and games focused on the science of climate change.

Nitrogen, one of the most abundant elements in the universe, is essential to life. This interactive activity adapted from the University of Alberta provides an overview of the nitrogen cycle.

Owing to their sessile lifestyle, plants are continuously exposed to a broad range of environmental stresses. The main abiotic stresses that affect plants and crops in the field are being extensively studied. They include drought, salinity, heat, cold, chilling, freezing, nutrient, high light intensity, ozone (O3) and anaerobic stresses. Under natural conditions, combinations of two or more stresses, such as drought and salinity, salinity and heat, and combinations of drought with extreme temperature or high light intensity are common to many agricultural areas around the world and could impact crop productivity. A major challenge towards world agriculture involves production of 70% more food crop for an additional 2.3 billion people by 2050 worldwide. Salinity is a major stress limiting the increase in the demand for food crops. More than 20% of cultivated land worldwide (about 45 hectares) is affected by salt stress and the amount is increasing day by day. Plants on the basis of adaptive evolution can be classified roughly into two major types: the halophytes (that can withstand salinity) and the glycophytes (that cannot withstand salinity and eventually die).Majority of major crop species belong to this second category. Thus salinity is one of the most brutal environmental stresses that hamper crop productivity worldwide.

This migrant agricultural worker’s family might find participating with government difficult when daily life is a struggle. Does socioeconomic status affect civic participation? (Credit: Dorothea Lange; Library of Congress Collection)

In this learning activity, students analyze various sources of information to determine the best location for a new wind farm.

In this activity, students distinguish between directly and indirectly transmitted diseases and participate in a group game to simulate the spread of vector-borne diseases. They then research a particular pathogenic disease to learn how global warming and biodiversity loss can affect disease transmission.

In this video segment adapted from Haskell Indian Nations University, meet Elders who describe dramatic changes that they have witnessed in their local environments.

This video segment from NatureScene describes the characteristics of redwood trees at Redwood National Park.