This lesson plan teaches students about the problems in the Aral Sea region and how the water loss of the sea is affecting specific groups of people, such as women, farmers and fishermen. They will work in groups to prepare statements that these people might make and will present their statements to a mock United Nations panel. Full description.

In this lesson, students will learn about a major event in which humans modified the physical environment in the United States. On completing this lesson, students should understand the effects of human modification on the Kissimmee River in Florida. They should be able to make generalizations about what they have learned and apply them to human actions and their environmental consequences elsewhere ... Full description.

This lesson has students observe and quantify their household and vehicle energy consumption; explain the relationship between energy consumption, energy production, and its influences on the greenhouse effect and global climate change; and suggest adaptation and mitigation strategies as to how he or she could reduce household and vehicle energy consumption in order to minimize carbon dioxide emissions. ... Full description.

The basic information and terms covered on this site are associated with groundwater, including aquifers (confined and unconfined), saturation zones, the water table, impermeable layers, the water cycle (hydrologic cycle), discharge, and recharge. There is a list of groundwater facts and diagrams of two types of aquifers along with a typical groundwater system. Information on contamination includes ... Full description.

This resource has students construct a model watershed in order to understand its operation. Students will observe how water flows from higher elevations to lower elevations, and the interconnectivity of watersheds. They will understand how the placement of buildings, roads, and parking lots can be important to watershed runoff, and how careless use and disposal of harmful contaminants can have a ... Full description.

This activity will help students understand algal blooms. They will devise their own experiments to test the effects of nutrients on algal growth, or younger students may follow the steps outlined in a sample activity which is provided. Students will be reminded that they need to have controls and replicates in their experiments. As a result of this activity, students will come to understand the requirements ... Full description.

In this activity, students will explore how energy is distributed at the surface of the earth in both space and time. Using data sets collected from Black Rock Forest, an instrumented education and research forest near West Point, New York, they will investigate variations in hourly solar energy influx and daily average solar radiation. They will make observations from the data, interpret it, and ... Full description.

This virtual field trip explores the geologic setting of the Colorado Front Range and some of its features and issues. Users can choose from a set of links or click on symbols on an interactive map to visit "stops" that feature photos, maps, or diagrams accompanied by brief written descriptions of geologic structures, economic resources (oil and gas, aggregate), historic landmarks, environmental issues, ... Full description.

This description of a ground-water aquifer has a graphic representation to accompany it. It is part of the U.S. Geologic Survey's Water Science for Schools website. Links to other parts of the site, such as definitions and types of wells, are included. Full description.

This Starting Point webpage is the summary of a role-playing resource called Mock Environmental Summit. The exercise takes place at the end of a six-week class or unit on global warming. Students role-play representatives from various countries and organizations at an international summit on the Santa Barbara protocol, dealing with global warming. The students prepare by studying the IPCC report on ... Full description.