Students will learn about magnification and how a magnifying lens works. They will examine a variety of different objects, first without a magnifier and then with a magnifier, and compare what they observe. They will practice observing details of these objects with magnifying lens. The purpose of this activity is for students to learn about observation skills and how tools can help people make observations, ... Full description.

Using a color chart, students will make observations outside during each of the four seasons. During each session, they will try to find as many colors as possible and record what they see. As a class, they will make charts describing the colors they find in each season. At the end of the school year, students will compare their results and generate conclusions about variations in colors in nature ... Full description.

The purpose of this resource is to select 15 km x 15 km Land Cover Sample Sites. Full description.

Become an amateur meteorologist by building your own weather station and keeping a record of your measurements. Older students can independently follow instructions on how to build five different instruments (barometer, hygrometer, rain gauge, weather vane, and compass). Younger students will need adult supervision with hammer and nails. Full description.

Snow and ice are both precipitation, that is, the processes that remove water from clouds. Clouds, regions of the atmosphere with high relative humidity, are made of droplets of water and perhaps bits of ice. Even though water is much denser than air, these droplets and ice crystals are small enough to be suspended by random upward air motion. When these droplets or crystals join together, gravity ... Full description.

A learning activity for the Scoop on Soils book in the Elementary GLOBE Series. Students will make predictions about what they think they will find in a sample of soil. They will investigate the sample and sort out the various items they find. Next they will spend time outside observing one or more sites to see what they find in the soil. After recording and sharing their observations they will create ... Full description.

Students will be introduced to different species of macroinvertebrates. They will hypothesize why each insect looks the way it does. Then students will make observations of macroinvertebrates in an aquarium in their classroom. For an optional extension, teachers can take students to a local stream or pond to conduct field observations. The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to hydrology ... Full description.

In this lesson, students test for visible and invisible pollutants in the air and keep a journal of experimental results, procedures, and conclusions. Using simple materials, they will form groups to set up experiments around the school, keep records, research the history of acid rain, make a mural showing the acid rain cycle, and post a chart displaying the sources of visible pollutants. Full description.

In this lesson, students download cloud and surface data from the NASA CERES S-COOL website student observation database, then develop and compare graphs to explore the relationships between surface temperature, pressure, and humidity. Students then investigate possible patterns in cloud-types and the surface conditions for several locations on a particular date of their choice from the S-COOL data. ... Full description.

A learning activity for the Scoop on Soils book in the Elementary GLOBE Series. Each student will explore three activities that promote understanding of and respect for soil. They will generate responses to the following questions: "What makes up soil?" and "What lives in the soil?" Next the students will watch a demonstration of how much soil there is on Earth that is available for human use. Last ... Full description.