Ocean Planet's six lesson plans are adapted from several themes in the Smithsonian Institution exhibition created to share with the public what recent research has revealed about the oceans and to encourage ocean conservation. "Sea Secrets" explores ocean geography; "Sea Connections" looks at the plants and animals that live in different marine ecosystems. "Ocean Market" identifies and values many ... Full description.

This site covers many of the components of cloud formation and cloud types. Although written for the high school level, the middle school student could grasp most of the concepts with the assistance from the teacher. Specific concepts covered include the importance of and mechanisms that produce rising air, cloud types, and ptyes of precipitation. There are nice graphics and images to support the ... Full description.

This site contains information about snow, glaciers, permafrost, sea ice and cryospheric trends. The cryosphere is the portion of the Earth's surface where water is in a solid form, usually snow or ice. Seasonal snow cover, the largest component of the cryosphere, covers up to 33 percent of the Earth's total land surface. Glaciers and ice sheets cover about 10 percent of the Earth's land area. Nearly ... Full description.

Ships travelling between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie use the Welland Canal. Beginning with a conversation between characters Mathise, Geo, and Trig, they explain how a lock in the canal operates by gravity alone, without pumps. The characters use mathematics to solve problems such as how long the locks take to fill and how to express the volume and flow of water in more common terms (bathtubs of water ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the Center for Educational Resources (CERES), a series of web-based astronomy lessons created by a team of master teachers, university faculty, and NASA researchers. Students download NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of the Martian polar ice caps from different times to measure and compare the changing Martian and Earth poles. This lesson contains expected outcomes ... Full description.

In this activity, students build an edible aquifer using ice cream, food coloring, and other ingredients to represent the various layers. They will learn about groundwater, water tables, confining layers, contamination, and recharge. A link to a glossary of groundwater terms is provided. Full description.

The purpose of this activity is to observe the type and cover of clouds including contrails. Students observe which of ten types of clouds and how many of three types of contrails are visible and how much of the sky is covered by clouds (other than contrails) and how much is covered by contrails. Intended outcomes are that students learn how to make estimates from observations and how to categorize ... Full description.

The purpose of this activity is to help students better understand percent cloud cover and to take more accurate cloud cover observations. Working in pairs or small groups, students use construction paper to simulate cloud cover. They estimate the percentage of cloud cover represented by torn pieces of paper on a contrasting background and assign a cloud cover classification to the simulations created ... Full description.

The purpose of this activity is to measure relative humidity using both a sling psychrometer and a digital hygrometer. Intended outcomes are that students learn to quantify humidity and that there is a limit to the amount of water vapor that the air can hold. Students gain insight into why rain drops and snow flakes form and why there is precipitation. Supporting background materials for both student ... Full description.

The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to visualizations as a tool for scientific problem-solving, using elevation and temperature as an example. Students color in visualizations of elevation and temperature so that important patterns in the data become evident. The relationship between the two quantities is studied by using them to compute the lapse rate, the rate at which temperature ... Full description.