This activity allows students to explore the roles of oil and water in the Middle East, especially in Iraq. Students will use maps to look at the distribution of oil in the Middle East and discuss what it means for the different countries in the region. They will also examine how water has influenced the region historically and politically. Finally, they will study specific aspects of Iraq's struggles ... Full description.

Methods of Analyzing Population Changes is a lesson plan to teach students that populations are dynamic and have identifiable characteristics and measurable growth patterns. Topics include population growth rate, life tables and equations, mortality and survival curves, and key factors analysis. The lesson plan provides objectives, skills, time required, content outline, materials, and significant ... Full description.

This lesson plan teaches students that populations are dynamic with identifiable characteristics and measurable growth patterns. Factors of population survival that are taught include immigration and emigration, environmental resistance, carrying capacity, and homeostasis. The lesson plan provides objectives, skills, time needed, a content outline, materials, and significant terms. The overarching ... Full description.

The concept that populations are dynamic with identifiable characteristics and measurable growth patterns is addressed in this lesson plan. Population characteristics are explained, including biotic potential, density, natality, mortality, and age distribution. The lesson plan provides objectives, skills, time needed, a content outline, materials, significant terms, and questions for the class. The ... Full description.

This on-line project is part of the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) program, which has developed internet activities for the elementary, middle, and high school level student. This series of activities explores the mathematical and environmental aspects of population growth. Using archived census and demographic data as well as up-to-the-minute population estimates from ... Full description.

The Science Now website contains past issues of this publication through 1993. Articles cover topics such as early Antarctic exploration, satellite technology, climate models, El Nino, hurricanes and their impacts, weather conditions and measurement, and the Boreal Ecosystem Atmosphere Study. The articles are written for research and education purposes, and some include student activities to support ... Full description.

This Why Files article discusses the problem of an ever-increasing human population here on Earth. Topics covered include the mathematics of population growth, future projections for the world's population, depleting resources, and the need for education and population control. Full description.

In this activity, students will graph carbon dioxide levels against temperature change over time and examine the data to look for trends. Another plotting exercise is provided in which they examine the relationship between the retreat of glaciers and sea level change. Non-linear trends (exponential or quadratic) are discussed and students investigate them by plotting population against time. Since ... Full description.

Humans have had a greater impact on forests than on other land ecosystems. This interactive feature uses NASA satellite images taken between 1984 and 2000 to demonstrate just how much of a once densely forested region in Bolivia has been cleared for commercial purposes. Users can view the images as an animation, or click on individual images taken every two years to see the stages of the deforestation. ... Full description.

These aerial photography and satellite images show in detail the results of laying waste to vast areas of forest and the harm done by poisons that humans have put into the water and air during the century and a half since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The site shows the thinning in the earth's protective covering of atmospheric ozone that appears over the Antarctic along with toxic hazes ... Full description.