Students participate in an activity to learn about fish and how they survive in an aquarium environment. Assuming the roles of fish biologist, aquarium architect, and zookeeper, they will research the classification and anatomy of fish and identify species suitable for an aquarium environment, as well as learning about the set-up and care of an aquarium. Each individual will prepare a written report, ... Full description.

This live, interactive electronic field trip to a North Carolina estuary is conducted on two dates each year. Previous field trips are stored for non-interactive access. Teachers can access resources on such topics as estuarine and coastal monitoring, management, cultural traditions, invasive species, and habitat restoration. The lesson plans include grade level and standards applicable for technology, ... Full description.

The National Marine Sanctuary Program identifies, designates and manages areas of the marine environment of special national significance due to their conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, research, educational, or aesthetic qualities. Access information and pictures of marine sanctuaries all over the U.S. and its territories. Discover ways to get involved with the sanctuary program, ... Full description.

These lesson plans in life sciences, physical science, chemistry and engineering link to projects of NOAA's Aquarius undersea research station. Topics include the: impacts of buoyancy, pressure and light on underwater research; effects of physical oceanography on coral reefs; effects of water temperature on the coral/zooxanthellae symbiosis; engineering of AUVs; fish survey techniques; chemical ecology; ... Full description.

The science of astrobiology is concerned with the question of whether or not life exists on other planets. This educator's guide presents eight activities in which younger students investigate this question and explore topics related to the search for life beyond their own planet by using some of the same strategies that astrobiologists use. They will express their opinions on the existence of alien ... Full description.

This unit, designed to span two class periods, helps students understand that physical factors, particularly temperature and precipitation, limit the growth of plant ecosystems. The activity begins with a discussion in which students develop their own ideas about the role of temperature, precipitation, and environment on plant growth. They will then examine X-Y graphs of vegetation growth, temperature, ... Full description.

MY NASA DATA (Mentoring and inquirY using NASA Data) is an effort to develop microsets of Earth science data that are interesting and useful to the K-12 and citizen scientist communities. The datasets can be used with existing curriculum and enable students to practice math skills using real measurements of Earth system variables and processes. This Website provides the datasets along with lesson ... Full description.

In this activity, users examine satellite images from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) that show how much ozone is in the atmosphere over the Southern Hemisphere. They interpret the images to identify ozone thinning that develops over this region each summer, and compare its size from year to year. Using freely available image analysis software, ImageJ, users quantify the area of the ... Full description.

The purpose of this resource is to quantitatively evaluate the accuracy of a classification system. Students sort birds into three possible classes based on each bird's beak: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Students compare their answers with a given set of validation data. Full description.

The purpose of this resource is to investigate the idea that every dynamic system has energy and matter in different forms. Full description.