This unit will allow students to investigate the 1999 die-off of lobsters in the Long Island Sound. Students will understand the changes in the Long Island ecosystems over the years. They will also gain a deeper understanding of how systems are connected, particularly land and sea ecosystems, and the types of environmental influences that can influence the lobster population. This will allow students to gain a deeper understanding about the environment around them, develop scientific inquiry skills, and enhance their problem-solving skills.

This curriculum unit will allow students will learn about the role a variety of factors play in a watershed by examining the lobster die-off in the Long Island Sound. Students will become experts on the six major factors that scientists believe may have contributed to the lobster die-off including: bacterial infections that cause the breakdown of the exoskeleton, a parasite that attacks the nervous system, higher than normal water temperatures, environmental effects of pesticide and insecticide use, pollution, and changes in dissolved oxygen levels.

After learning about the various potential causes of the lobster die-off students will develop their own explanation citing evidence in order to defend what they believe caused this die-off.

Students analyze data on temperature and precipitation collected from 26 different Long Term Ecological Research sites and compare them with annual net primary productivity. The students then form an ecological rule to explain their results.

Students analyze data on temperature and precipitation collected from 26 different Long Term Ecological Research sites and compare them with annual net primary productivity. The students then form an ecological rule to explain their results.

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This video and accompanying essay review the impacts of rising surface air temperatures and thawing permafrost on ecosystems, geology, and native populations in Alaska.

This is a guided practice activity that uses the "big ideas" of systems thinking and sustainability to introduce Information Literacy Threshold Concepts. The IL threshold concepts in this assignment are "Scholarship as Conversation" and "Research as Inquiry." In groups and then as a class, students map the ideas in an assigned reading and connect those ideas using systems thinking. Students will then use the concept map to direct their research inquiry.

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Organisms interact with the living and nonliving features within their environment which creates a cause and
effect relationship among populations in the ecosystem. Individual survival and population sizes depend on
factors, such as predation, availability of resources, and parameters of the physical environment (light,
temperature, space for shelter and reproduction). Additionally, organism interaction serves the purpose to
obtain matter and energy. Organisms obtain energy through photosynthesis or consuming other organisms in a
complex set of relationships within a particular food web. These complex food webs serve as a basis for
understanding the dynamic interdependence among organisms and the physical environment.

A cartilha em quadrinhos A Magia Mangal em: Salvando o Manguezal, une a diversão, ludicidade e leveza dos quadrinhos HQ, ao conhecimento científico, sendo desta forma considerado um recurso didático. A HQ traz a estória de dois estudantes ( Jamal e Gabi), que participam de um mutirão de limpeza ao manguezal próximo da sua escola, junto com seus colegas, comunidade escolar e comunidade vizinha. Durante o mutirão, Fred ( uma garça branca) observa que Jamal e Gabi fazem comentários demonstrando pouco conhecimento sobre o ecossistema em questão, diante disso, ele utiliza a " magia mangal" magia vinda do manguezal, e transforma Jamal e Gabi respectivamente em um caranguejo marinheiro e uma capivara, nesta aventura, a transformação de Jamal e Gabi, faz com que os dois conheçam toda fauna, flora, características, curiosidades e importância desse ecossistema e sejam multiplicadores desse conhecimento para todos do seu convívio, afim de que desta forma ajudem a "salvar o manguezal" ecossistema tão subestimado e degradado.

Even experienced divers rarely get to see the Mandarinfish, a colorful reef fish that is so shy, it only comes out of hiding for a half-hour a day. In this video, Jonathan travels to the south Pacific to film spawning Mandarinfish and witnesses an incredible secret ritual. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

In this video, Jonathan travels to the Micronesian island of Yap in the middle of the Pacific to investigate large gatherings of the world's largest ray‰ŰÓthe manta. A research program there is tracking dozens of these animals and Jonathan learns what they're doing hanging around certain coral heads every morning. Please see the accompanying lesson plan on tides for educational objectives, discussion points and classroom activities.

Mapping mangroves is a project dedicated to preservation and understanding of the world's mangrove forests. Through the use of Ushahidi, an open source project that allows for users to crowdsource data, participants will report their findings.

Students will choose a physical place to study, a site that is close enough to visit at least four times during the quarter/semester. Using writing prompts, text-based research, and close observations in the "field" (the chosen place), students will create a "mashup" of spatially referenced pop-up balloons. These will include researched and narrative prose, citations and links, and some visual images, embedded into a map via Google Earth technology. Through this unique presentation, the research and writing can encourage viewers to better understand the place they have chosen to study.

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In this activity students use NASA satellite data to study changes in temperature and snow-ice coverage in the South Beaufort Sea, Alaska. They will then correlate the data with USGS ground tracking of polar bears and relate their findings to global change, sea ice changes, and polar bear migration and survival.

Students engage with the issue of plastics found in the ocean environment, by exploring products in their homes which contain plastics; they also learn how to calculate the concentration of plastics found in a chosen personal care product.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This activity uses a mix of multimedia resources and hands-on activities to support a storyline of investigation into melting sea and land ice.

This video is accompanied by supporting materials including background essay and discussion questions. The focus is on changes happening to permafrost in the Arctic landscape, with Alaska Native peoples and Western scientists discussing both the causes of thawing and its impact on the ecosystem. The video shows the consequences of erosion, including mudslides and inland lakes being drained of water. An Inuit expresses his uncertainty about the ultimate effect this will have on his community and culture.

In this activity from NOAA's Okeanos Explorer Education Materials Collection, learners investigate how methane hydrates might have been involved with the Cambrian explosion.

What do Prairie Chickens Need in Order to Survive Today's Prairie?

This middle school unit covering ecosystems, animal behavior and symbiosis was developed through the Storyline approach. Middle school students will be figuring out why prairie chickens have a very unique dance and understand the role cows play to help ensure the dance takes place. Using this approach, students engage in science concepts to help ensure the survival of the prairie chicken.

In this video segment adapted from Hope in a Changing Climate, learn how an environmentally devastated ecosystem has been restored, benefiting both the local economy and global efforts to fight climate change.

This article describes a number of creative projects that incorporate art and literacy skills into a science unit on biomes and ecosystems.

Algal blooms are caused by an aggregation of either microscopic phytoplankton or macro algae. They can produce toxic or harmful effects on humans and or the ecosystem. The purpose of this activity is to teach students how to use remote sensing data from the Landsat 8 (OLI) to monitor algal blooms. Students work through a case study from Lake Erie. At the end of this activity students will be able to, in MATLAB, 1) access USGS data repositories to view Landsat imagery, 2) access band specific .TIF files directly from Amazon Web Services, 3) pre-process the imagery and a apply single band bloom detection algorithm and 4) work with the atmospherically corrected Land Surface Reflectance product to improve remote sensing estimates. Students will also work with the MATLAB Mapping Toolbox to produce presentation quality maps.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)