In this lesson plan students will explore the world with a visual scavenger hunt. They will select a handful of important natural and cultural characteristics of places. They will then search through magazines such as National Geographic for photographs that illustrate the range of those characteristics. They can also chart the locations they find on a map of the world. Full description.

This lesson plan helps students to understand that perception influences the mental maps and attitudes of people about places. In order to help students grasp how perceptions play out in the real world, students will analyze sketch maps produced by different people on the basis of their mental maps and draw inferences about the factors (e.g., culture, age, sex, occupation, experience) that influence ... Full description.

This Classroom Connectors lesson plan teaches young students that environmental problems vary from community to community. They learn the difference between urban environmental problems and rural environmental problems, as well as possible solutions to both. The site provides goals, objectives, an outline, time required, materials, activities, and closure ideas for the lesson. The Classroom Connectors ... Full description.

This activity explores the potential impact of climate variability and change on one of Earth's increasingly vulnerable resources, forests. Although this activity is designed to tap specific skills and knowledge through scientific inquiry, its broader intent is to stimulate thought about the long-term impacts of a warmer planet. The activity focuses on a specific aspect of the climate variability ... Full description.

This is the teacher resource site for the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) program "Stories from the Fossil Record". It provides information to aide instructors in implementing the program in a classroom setting. Included are lesson plans, handouts, related activities, and background references. Also included are pre- and post-lesson assessments. Full description.

This Classroom Connectors lesson plan discusses habitats, including topics such as the food chain and habitat preservation. The site provides goals, objectives, an outline, time required, materials, activities, and closure ideas for the lesson. The Classroom Connectors address content with an activity approach while incorporating themes necessary to raise the activity to a higher cognition level. ... Full description.

In this National Geographic lesson plan, students look at various regions and define what a region is, give examples, and understand the subjective nature of determining regional boundaries. Full description.

In this lesson, students investigate the living creatures in a drop of pond water under magnification. This lesson is the second in a two-part series on microorganisms. It is designed to follow the first lesson, but can also stand alone. Students observe microscopic organisms found in pond water using a hand lens, 30x magnification, and 100x magnification. Observing these organisms should stimulate ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 6-8. It focuses on the naturally-occurring greenhouse effect on Earth, and its connection to global warming. Students build model greenhouses to see how this process works. Included are objectives, materials, procedures, discussion questions, evaluation ideas, suggested readings, and vocabulary. There are videos available ... Full description.

This lesson plan is about receding of the Aral Sea, the impact this has on the residents of the region who are forced to deal with the ensuing changes to this important freshwater habitat, and how their reactions differ depending on their occupations and roles. Students will research the situation in the Aral Sea region; explain how health, agriculture, fishing, and ecosystems are affected; and determine ... Full description.