This website is one of Public Broadcasting System's (PBS) Living Edens. The site includes material on turtles and other animals including crocodiles and caimans, ants, monkeys, poison dart frogs, quetzals, snakes, and butterflies. Users can also read about Arenal Volcano, and about visiting parks in Costa Rica including Arenal National Park, Poas Volcano National Park, Palo Verde National Park, Tortuguero ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 6-8. It focuses on icebergs and water salinity, as well as the environment of the continent of Antarctica. Students research this area and do an experiment demonstrating the relationship between water salinity and ice floating or sinking in the ocean. Included are objectives, materials, procedures, discussion questions, ... Full description.

This website integrates video footage and information with lesson plans and activities to teach students about the intertidal zone of the oceans. This zone is a habitat for only a few species due to extreme fluctuations in moisture level, heat, salinity, and sunlight. The activities in this unit are designed to enable students to investigate the creatures of these zones and how they have adapted to ... Full description.

In this activity students observe how respiration affects the gas composition of a closed system. They will discover that as seeds become metabolocally active, the released carbon dioxide diffuses into an indicator dye solution and the dye responds with a radical change in color. Students learn that as seeds germinate they use oxygen to breakdown molecules of sugar and that this reaction (respiration) ... Full description.

This activity has students build, evolve, and modify paper-and-straw birds to simulate natural selection acting on random mutations and discover that: all organisms, including humans, retain evidence of their evolutionary history; form is often linked to function; mutations are random, but selection is not; and selection is dependent on many factors. In addition, they will realize that adaptations ... Full description.

In this lesson, students will investigate the importance of coral reefs to the Earth as a whole and learn some possible explanations for the phenomenon known as "coral bleaching". They should be able to identify ways that coral reefs benefit human beings, identify major threats to reefs and discuss how they might be reduced or eliminated, describe the Coral Reef Early Warning System, and discuss why ... Full description.

This resource features three sections devoted to learning about coral reefs: an online tutorial, an educational roadmap to resources, and formal lesson plans. The tutorial presents an overview of coral biology and threats to coral reefs. Topics include characteristics of corals, the relationship of corals and zooxanthellae, stony corals and reef formation, the importance of coral reefs, and natural ... Full description.

This six-week project requires students to research wetlands and communicate concerns about these environments using persuasive writing. Students research wetland characteristics, issues and problems surrounding wetlands, the purpose of wetlands, plant life, and some products that wetlands produce to form an opinion about the future of wetlands in the United States. This site provides mini-lessons ... Full description.

This tutorial covers various aspects of trees. It explains which chemicals cause leaves to change colors, how the process of photosynthesis works, the functions of bark, roots, pollen and leaves, and the effect of trees on nearby temperature. Full description.

A common criticism of natural selection is: How can it produce novel complex useful structures by pure random chance? Darwin argued that selection is not a random process, and furthermore, it is cumulative. This lesson provides a way for students to actually compare the cumulative non-random selection of Darwin with the non-cumulative version so often erroneously implied. Students attempt to produce ... Full description.