These lessons help students develop a better understanding of the importance of well-managed water use while exploring the concepts of a watershed, land use, aquifers, and water engineering. The material focuses on the historical water use decision affecting the Owens River Valley in California. Materials lists, procedures, assessment recommendations, and extension ideas are provided. Links to additional ... Full description.

These are the teaching notes for a case study in which students use cooperative learning and role-playing to explore the scientific, technical, environmental, and ethical issues related to the possibility of cloning dinosaurs from ancient DNA. The case was designed to enhance the learning environment in an introductory class through cooperative problem-solving and to promote active participation in ... Full description.

The Stefan-Boltzmann Law is a fundamental law of physics. In this lesson, students will use this law and the near-ground air temperature to compute the hourly irradiance emitted by the surface of Earth. Then comparisons will be made with actual observations of this variable, called upwelling terrestrial radiation. Full description.

This lesson is designed to provide students an understanding of the extent to which radiative energy heats and cools the surface of Earth on a daily basis. Students will learn to calculate the total amount of incoming and outgoing radiation over a day. They will learn to determine how balanced the radiative system is over a particular location and try to determine whether the surface is in radiative ... Full description.

This resource allows students to make use of data generated by environmental sensors that are distributed throughout Black Rock Forest. It includes interactive activities to acquaint the student with remote sensing and with the data-gathering tools. The data are used in various activities that strengthen the students' understanding of the earth system. Full description.

In this lesson students learn that degrees of biological relationship can be inferred from comparisons of selected molecules. Students are guided through a process in which three questions are addressed by retrieving beta hemoglobin sequences from online databases. They then use online tools to compare those sequences in student-selected animals. The questions addressed are: whether bats are birds ... Full description.

In this activity, students will study data from satellite temperature images and underwater sensors (CTDs) to look for evidence of an upwelling off the coast of New Jersey. Based on their new knowledge, they will use real-time ocean data from the Coastal Ocean Observatory Laboratory (COOLroom) to create their own ocean weather forecast for the local newspaper. Students will discover that using the ... Full description.

In this lesson, students will collect and graph data on air temperature, relative humidity, and dew point to observe why these variables change (or do not change) during the day. Graphs are constructed by using free downloadable software (WxScope). By making observations of qualitative and quantitative changes in these variables with time, they will understand the advantages of using dewpoint temperature ... Full description.

Step-by-step instructions walk users through working with data from a seismic wave model in a freely available GIS (geographic information system) program, ESRI's ArcVoyager SE. Users generate and examine maps and produce graphs to explore variations in seismic wave velocities at depths of 28 and 100 km below Earth's surface. By examining and analyzing GIS-ready data, users visualize density changes ... Full description.

This lesson will inform students about the high level of confidence we have in the geological ages of an old Earth. At the same time, it should reveal an example of pseudoscience, which should be part of any effort to improve science literacy and critical thinking. Students are taken through a combination of background information and interactive experiences, and checked frequently by questions to ... Full description.