The DISCOVER-AQ curriculum integrates real-word research with real-life learning to answer the question: What are the causes and effects of air quality issues and how do they affect human health and the environment?

This course focuses on disseminating Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) or water/environment innovations in developing countries and underserved communities worldwide. It emphasizes core WASH and water/environment principles, culture-specific solutions, tools for start-ups, appropriate and sustainable technologies, behavior change, social marketing, building partnerships, and the theory and practice of innovation diffusion.

Students learn how the process of soil solarization is used to pasteurize agricultural fields before planting crops. Soil solarization is a pest control technique in agriculture that uses the sun’s radiation to heat the soil and eliminate unwanted pests that could harm the crops. The approach is compared to other pest control methods such as fumigation and herbicide application, highlighting the respective benefits and drawbacks. In preparation for the associated hands-on activity on soil biosolarization, students learn how changing the variables involved in the solarizing process (such as the tarp material, soil water content and addition of organic matter) impacts the technique’s effectiveness. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post-quiz is provided.

While the creation of a dam provides many benefits, it can have negative impacts on local ecosystems. Students learn about the major environmental impacts of dams and the engineering solutions used to address them.

Through eight lessons, students are introduced to many facets of dams, including their basic components, the common types (all designed to resist strong forces), their primary benefits (electricity generation, water supply, flood control, irrigation, recreation), and their importance (historically, currently and globally). Through an introduction to kinetic and potential energy, students come to understand how dams generate electricity. They learn about the structure, function and purpose of locks, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity. Other lessons introduce students to common environmental impacts of dams and the engineering approaches to address them. They learn about the life cycle of salmon and the many engineered dam structures that aid in their river passage, as they think of their own methods and devices that could help fish migrate past dams. Students learn how dams and reservoirs become part of the Earth's hydrologic cycle, focusing on the role of evaporation. To conclude, students learn that dams do not last forever; they require ongoing maintenance, occasionally fail or succumb to "old age," or are no longer needed, and are sometimes removed. Through associated hands-on activities, students track their personal water usage; use clay and plastic containers to model and test four types of dam structures; use paper cups and water to learn about water pressure and Pascal's Law; explore kinetic energy by creating their own experimental waterwheel from two-liter plastic bottles; collect and count a stream's insects to gauge its health; play an animated PowerPoint game to quiz their understanding of the salmon life cycle and fish ladders; run a weeklong experiment to measure water evaporation and graph their data; and research eight dams to find out and compare their original purposes, current status, reservoir capacity and lifespan. Woven throughout the unit is a continuing hypothetical scenario in which students act as consulting engineers with a Splash Engineering firm, assisting Thirsty County in designing a dam for Birdseye River.

By tracing the movement of radiation released during an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, students see how air pollution, like particulate matter, can become a global issue.

Students learn the concept behind the engineering design of a polymer brush—a coating consisting of polymers that is “tethered” to a particular surface. Polymer brushes can be used on water filtration membranes as an antifouling coating. After designing a model that represents an antifouling polymer brush coating for a water filtration surface, students take on the challenge to engineer their brush design on the surface of a Styrofoam block (which serves as a model for a surface filter) using various materials.

Student teams act as engineers and brainstorm, design, create and test their ideas for packaging to protect a raw egg shipped in a 9 x 12-in envelope. They follow the steps of the engineering design process and aim for a successful solution with no breakage, low weight, minimal materials and recyled/reused materials. Students come to understand the multi-faceted engineering considerations associated with the packaging of items to preserve, market and safely transport goods.

Students are challenged to design a permanent guest village within the Saguaro National Park in Arizona. The design must provide a true desert experience to visitors while emphasizing sustainable design, protection of the natural environment, and energy and resource conservation. To successfully address and respond to this challenge, students must acquire an understanding of desert ecology, environmental limiting factors, species adaptations and resource utilization. Following theintroduction, students generate ideas and consider the knowledge required to complete the challenge. The lectures and activities that follow serve to develop this level of comprehension. To introduce the concepts of healthy ecosystems, biomimetics and the importance of sustainable environmental design, students watch three video clips of experts. These clips provide direction for student research and challenge design solutions.

This video segment from Greater Boston examines whether environmental toxins may be to blame for a rare skin disease.

An Introduction to Soil Science

Short Description:
Written entirely by members of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, "Digging into Canadian Soils: An Introduction to Soil Science" provides an introduction to the core disciplines of soil science, and introduces the concepts and vocabulary needed by students just beginning their soil science journey. The textbook provides supplementary materials that are specific to regions in Canada, or may be of specific interest beyond what might be considered introductory soil science material. Importantly, the textbook also is intended to introduce students to the Canadian System of Soil Classification by providing examples from across the length and breadth of the world’s second largest country, and to the Canadian Society of Soil Science, whose members share a common passion for soil science and are keen to share and instill this passion with students across Canada.

Long Description:
Written, reviewed and edited by members of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, Digging into Canadian Soils: An Introduction to Soil Science provides an introduction to the core disciplines of soil science (pedology, soil biology and microbiology, physics, chemistry, fertility and nutrient cycling, and management), and introduces the concepts and vocabulary needed by students just beginning their soil science journey. The textbook is appropriate for use in a number of disciplines, including environmental and agricultural sciences, as well as related geology, geography and natural resources engineering disciplines.

Chapters within the textbook are presented in three sections according to the content and level of the complexity. The first section of the book, Digging In, introduces core disciplines in a series of chapters written by authors whose research expertise informs the chapter content. Supplementary materials that are specific to regions in Canada are presented in chapters within a second section, Digging Across Canada. The third section, Digging Deeper, provides in-depth overview of some topics beyond what is considered core soil science disciplinary material, and may be appropriate for upper level soil science or related discipline courses. The textbook includes an extensive glossary that is accessible via in-text links. Importantly, the textbook is intended also to introduce students to the Canadian System of Soil Classification by providing examples from across the length and breadth of the world’s second largest country, and to the Canadian Society of Soil Science, whose members share a common passion for soil science and are keen to share and instill this passion with students across Canada.

Word Count: 182572

ISBN: 978-0-88880-668-0

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Geographic information systems (GIS), once used predominantly by experts in cartography and computer programming, have become pervasive in everyday business and consumer use. This unit explores GIS in general as a technology about which much more can be learned, and it also explores applications of that technology. Students experience GIS technology through the use of Google Earth on the environmental topic of plastics in the ocean in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The use of this topic in GIS makes the unit multidisciplinary, incorporating the physics of ocean currents, the chemistry associated with pollutant degradation and chemical sorption to organic-rich plastics, and ecological impact to aquatic biota.

In this activity, students investigate different methods (aeration and filtering) for removing pollutants from water. They will design and build their own water filters.

In recent years, the redistribution of risk has created conditions for natural and technological disasters to become more widespread, more difficult to manage, and more discriminatory in their effects. Policy and planning decision-makers frequently focus on the impact that human settlement patterns, land use decisions, and risky technologies can have on vulnerable populations. However, to ensure safety and promote equity, they also must be familiar with the social and political dynamics that are present at each stage of the disaster management cycle. Therefore, this course will provide students with:

An understanding of the breadth of factors that give rise to disaster vulnerability; and
A foundation for assessing and managing the social and political processes associated with disaster policy and planning.

Students learn about the amazing adaptations of the ptarmigan to the alpine tundra. They focus one adaptation, the feathered feet of the ptarmigan, and ask whether the feathers serve to only keep the feet warm or to also provide the bird with floatation capability. They create model ptarmigan feet, with and without feathers, and test the hypothesis on the function of the feathers. Ultimately, students make a claim about whether the feathers provide floatation and support this claim with their testing evidence.

Students use a sponge and water model to explore the concept of relative humidity and create a percent scale.

This lesson explores ecosystems and how living things are interconnected and is presented in Spanish

This explore on your own student managed lesson explores ecosystems and how living things are interconnected.

This explore on your own student managed lesson explores ecosystems and how living things are interconnected and is presented in Spanish