This is an in-depth activity that focuses on Wisconsin ecosystem characteristics and energy flow within ecosystems. The activity is lengthy, but selected parts of it could be adapted to a variety of teaching situations.

Students work collaboratively to construct knowledge about the intersection of social justice and ecological integrity. Students will chose a consumer product that has adverse ecological and social justice impacts and develop a set of proposals for action that would challenge, dismantle or diminish those adverse consequences.

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Rangelands are one of Nebraska’s most important and valuable natural resources: forage for livestock, habitat for wildlife, protection to soil from erosion, filters runoff water, and recharges groundwater. This unit will prepare students with a better understanding of rangeland ecosystems to prepare them for better management decision making. Unit by Kortni Burnett, Nebraska Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Educator

This video segment from NatureScene describes the characteristics of redwood trees at Redwood National Park.

This activities provided reflective writing prompts to be used in conjunction with a service learning project in a science course (Restoration Ecology).

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For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-making processes. We feature cases involving large carnivores in the West (mountain lions and grizzly bears), Northeast coastal fisheries, and adaptive management of the Colorado River. There will be nightly readings and a short written assignment.

For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-making processes. We feature cases involving large carnivores in the West (mountain lions and grizzly bears), Northeast coastal fisheries, and adaptive management of the Colorado River. There will be nightly readings and a short written assignment.

In this video segment from NatureScene, discover some reptiles in the swamp forest ecosystem at Congaree Swamp National Park.

Detailed information is provided in activity description/assignment and an example lab handout that assisted students in conducting their research.

Initial guidelines given to students:

Choose a location (where you are from, a place that is of interest to you) and investigate how projected changes in climate will affect that area. What are the expected changes in temperature, precipitation, storms, droughts, sea level, seasonality, etc? How will this affect the habitat of the area (for humans, animals, and plants)? How will this affect the local economy? What actions can the people that live in this area take to lessen the impacts of changing climate? Students write a scientific style paper on their findings, and present their research to the class in ~10 minute oral presentations (alternatively a poster session could be used).

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In this video, students learn how scientific surveys of wildlife are performed at a site in Yosemite, California. These surveys, in conjunction with studies from the early 1900s, provide evidence that animal populations in Yosemite have shifted over time in response to rising temperatures.

This is a large-scale participatory activity used to prompt students to review what they have learned and to think actively and cooperatively about the connections between the systems we have discussed prior to the activity. It produces a large, visual product students can reflect on.

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This activity is designed to engage students in an active debate about land use and planning, human populations, ecosystems, and sustainability by assigning every student to a "community" along a theoretical meandering river.

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This video explores the work of environmentalist John Hart, a Professor of Environmental Science at U.C. Berkley. In the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Dr. Hart has established an experimental laboratory in which he has artificially created and maintained a 3-degree increase in surface temperature of a plot of land, and documented the impact on plant species occupying the plot.

Learn about root systems of trees in the Congaree Swamp National Park in this video segment from NatureScene.

In this lesson we review "Acids and Bases" taught in a previous lesson and, through a scientific method, will look at the impact of an acid on different types of shells. Students will reinforce previous learning of scientific principles including acids/basis and will develop a real experiment using the scientific method.

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The activity allows for learning about salt marshes ecosystem and practicing of basic math in estimations.

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This student activity engages the students' thinking by listening to a story, brainstorming ideas in small groups about how human activity or natural disasters could possibly impact an animal's environment, and then reinforcing that thinking using a board game called Save an Animal.

As sea level rises, wetlands and marshes must move inland, or drown. The Sonoma Land Trust is using innovative strategies to restore and enhance marshlands and the ecosystems they support.

The annual cycle of seasonal rounds for Native Americans in Oregon reflects the relationship theyshare with the land—a relationship that includes intimate knowledge of local ecosystems. Since time immemorial, Tribes in Oregon have carefully considered seasonal ecosystems and ecoregions, and this knowledge of soil, water, plants, and animals helped them survive. Native Americans in Oregon today continue to draw on traditional Indigenous knowledge to guide how they manage the parts of their ancestral homelands that remain in their care.In this lesson, students will use a systems-thinking approach to explore the components andprocesses of ecosystems as they consider how the seasonal rounds of Native American Tribes in Oregon reflect local ecosystems. Students will analyze a hypothetical and a local ecosystem by identifying abiotic and biotic components and their relationships and then consider how Native people in Oregon considered the local abiotic and biotic components of their seasonal ecosystemsin seasonal rounds. Students will also consider the impact of forced relocation to reservations. Prior to white settlement, most Tribes in Oregon moved seasonally throughout a vast region in a pattern based on the availability of foods. Students will consider habitats, natural resources, stability and change, and living and nonliving components of habitats.

Place and Location are two of the five themes of geography and a natural starting point for a study of the Arctic and Antarctica. Location answers the question, "Where am I?" while the study of place asks, "What kind of a place is it?" and, "How does this place connect to my hometown?" This issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears examines how you can introduce the Arctic and Antarctica and use science, geography, literacy, and technology to help your students compare and contrast these two dramatically different areas as well as their own home. Get ready for an adventure as you and your students develop your polar sense of place!

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online professional development magazine for elementary teachers which focuses on preparing teachers to teach polar science concepts in an already congested curriculum by integrating inquiry-based science with literacy teaching. Such an integrated approach can increase students' science knowledge, academic language, reading comprehension, and written and oral discourse abilities.