Can law change human behavior to be less environmentally damaging? Law will be examined through case histories including: environmental effects of national security, pesticides, air pollution, consumer products, plastics, parks and protected area management, land use, urban growth and sprawl, public/private transit, drinking water standards, food safety, and hazardous site restoration. In each case we will review the structure of law and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.

A great variety of processes affect the surface of the Earth. Topics to be covered are production and movement of surficial materials; soils and soil erosion; precipitation; streams and lakes; groundwater flow; glaciers and their deposits. The course combines aspects of geology, climatology, hydrology, and soil science to present a coherent introduction to the surface of the Earth, with emphasis on both fundamental concepts and practical applications, as a basis for understanding and intelligent management of the Earth’s physical and chemical environment.

This article aligns the concepts of Essential Principle 2 of the Climate Sciences to the K-5 content standards of the National Science Education Standards. The author also identifies common misconceptions about heat and the greenhouse gases effect and offers resources for assessing students' understanding of interactions among components of the Earth system. This article continues the examination of the climate sciences and climate literacy on which the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured.

This article identifies age-appropriate national science education content standards and curriculum connections for introducing complex concepts contained in Principle 7 of the Essential Principles of Climate Sciences. The principle describes consequences of climate changes on Earth systems and human lives. The content standards will help teachers determine appropriate topics for their students. A number of resources from the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle are highlighted for their connection to the science curriculum in the early grades. In addition, the article identifies common misconceptions about weather and the water cycle often held by students.

Students explore material properties in hands-on and visually evident ways via the Archimedes' principle. First, they design and conduct an experiment to calculate densities of various materials and present their findings to the class. Using this information, they identify an unknown material based on its density. Then, groups explore buoyant forces. They measure displacement needed for various materials to float on water and construct the equation for buoyancy. Using this equation, they calculate the numerical solution for a boat hull using given design parameters.

This is a semester-long jigsaw project in which students work in teams to explore the effects of energy resource development on local water resources, economics, and society. Students are presented with a contemporary energy resource development issue being debated in their community. They research the water, geological, economic, and social impact of the project, and then either defend or support the development proposal.

Using life-sized photographs, students participate in environmental monitoring of rocky intertidal and subtidal organisms.

In this activity, students make a model sea floor sediment core using two types of buttons to represent fossil diatoms. They then compare the numbers of diatom fossils in the sediment at different depths to determine whether the seas were free of ice while the diatoms were alive.

Students observe multiple examples of capillary action. First they observe the shape of a glass-water meniscus and explain its shape in terms of the adhesive attraction of the water to the glass. Then they study capillary tubes and observe water climbing due to capillary action in the glass tubes. Finally, students experience a real-world application of capillary action by designing and using "capillary siphons" to filter water.

Each student team researches and reports on one of the National Marine Sanctuaries and completes a thought-provoking worksheet to compare and contrast their sanctuary with the others.

Students test and observe the "self-cleaning" lotus effect using a lotus leaf and cloth treated with a synthetic lotus-like superhydrophobic coating. They also observe the Wenzel and Cassie Baxter wetting states by creating and manipulating condensation droplets on the leaf surface. They consider the real-life engineering applications for these amazing water-repellent and self-cleaning properties.

This lab allows students to explore some of the properties and effects of water. Students may choose from 9 options to complete 3 mini lab assignments. Each lab can be completed at home, with common household materials. The properties of mechanical weathering, erosion, density, transportation of pollution, pressure, water as a universal solvent and capillary action are included. Students also have the option to design their own experiment for a property of water of their choice. A water use inventory is also included to help students understand how much water is overused and how they can decrease water waste. The water use inventory is targeted at students in Utah, but can easily be adapted to any location.***Please have your students click "File" then "Make a Copy" to access each google doc. They will then be able to add their answers to their own copy.***

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Managing wastewater is a major logistical puzzle that impacts the environment, the climate, and public health. While metropolitan wastewater typically undergoes complex processing and sanitation, rural livestock wastewater is often simply composted for fertilizer, but composting can release harmful contaminants like ammonia, CO₂, and methane. One way to still capture the nutrients with fewer harmful byproducts is by cultivating microalgae, which actually absorb CO₂ via photosynthesis rather than producing it. But how do microalgae impact pathogens? A recent pilot study using raw piggery wastewater found that microalgae cultivation dramatically reduced the pathogen load while also triggering a dramatic shift in the overall bacterial community composition. Further investigation using the most abundant pathogen, Oligella, found that the microalgae weren’t impacting Oligella directly. Rather, microalgae cultivation reduced Oligella abundance through a network of other bacterial species..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students drop water from different heights to demonstrate the conversion of water's potential energy to kinetic energy. They see how varying the height from which water is dropped affects the splash size. They follow good experiment protocol, take measurements, calculate averages and graph results. In seeing how falling water can be used to do work, they also learn how this energy transformation figures into the engineering design and construction of hydroelectric power plants, dams and reservoirs.

In this video from Common Ground and Cleaner Water, Tribby Vice, a Kentucky farmer, talks about the changes he has made on his farm to protect the water quality of the stream running through his property and the watershed in which he lives.

Students further their understanding of the salmon life cycle and the human structures and actions that aid in the migration of fish around hydroelectric dams by playing an animated PowerPoint game involving a fish that must climb a fish ladder to get over a dam. They first brainstorm their own ideas, and then learn about existing ways engineers have made dams "friendlier" to migrating fish, before being quizzed as part of the game.

When you add water to effervescent (fizzy) tablets or baking powder, bubbles are formed: a gas is produced. You can use this gas to inflate a balloon without blowing it up yourself. What kind of gas is it? Let us collect this gas and analyse it through experiments.

National Air and Space Museum. Museum educator Ann Caspari will read the original story Fly and Float, a story about seaplanes.

Students experience firsthand one of the most common water treatment types in the industry today, flocculants. They learn how the amount of suspended solids in water is measured using the basic properties of matter and light. In addition, they learn about the types of solids that can be found in water and the reasons that some are easier to remove than others. Encompassing the concepts of force and motion, attraction and repulsion of charged particles, and properties of matter, during the associated activity students see scientific concepts they already understand through the eyes of engineers who apply them to the removal of solids from water via chemical flocculants.

Students learn how to use and graph real-world stream gage data to create event and annual hydrographs and calculate flood frequency statistics. Using an Excel spreadsheet of real-world event, annual and peak streamflow data, they manipulate the data (converting units, sorting, ranking, plotting), solve problems using equations, and calculate return periods and probabilities. Prompted by worksheet questions, they analyze the runoff data as engineers would. Students learn how hydrographs help engineers make decisions and recommendations to community stakeholders concerning water resources and flooding.