This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service presents the key concepts of cave and karst systems, including how and where they form, different types, and various cave environments.

In this video adapted from the Arctic Athabaskan Council, learn how warmer temperatures in the Arctic are transforming the landscape, triggering a host of effects such as permafrost thawing and insect infestations.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists are on the hunt for tornadoes. Using Doppler radar, they gather data in the hopes of solving the mystery of how tornadoes form.

In this video produced for Teachers' Domain, learn about MIT professor Cathy Drennan's research into microorganisms that remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

The goal of this unit is that the students will be able to:
1. work in a blended learning environment to understand climate change and its impact on the world.
2. master a basic understanding of climate change
3. work in groups to research focused questions, present their research, and propose a way to combat climate change.
4. present their completed projects to their classmates. This unit is based on a lesson plan from The Learning Network found here: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/guest-post-climate-change-questions-for-citizen-scientists/

The goal of this unit is for students to work in a blended learning environment to understand climate change and its impact on the world. The objectives are for students to master a basic understanding of climate change and to work in groups to research focused questions, present their research, and propose a way to combat climate change. Students will present their completed projects to their classmates. This unit is based on a lesson plan from The Learning Network found here: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/guest-post-climate-change-questions-for-citizen-scientists/

This video adapted from KTOO takes a look at Earth's warming and cooling cycles and the current atypical trend of warming that is impacting the glaciers in Alaska's Inside Passage.

This activity is designed to help students visualize and explain the relationships between various terms and concepts related to the science of climate change. After performing this activity students will (hopefully) be able to define various climate change terms and explain the process of climate change.

(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.)

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes scientist Lars-Erik Liljelund, Director General of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, for a discussion of Swedish policy for addressing climate change and global warming. He reflects on his own career which combines work in public policy and science. He also talks about the distinctive quality of the global warming problem and the obstacles for finding and implementing solutions. 54 min)

Suney Park wants her students to know that what they learn in class is relevant to their lives and the world. In this introduction, she shows us how her students come up with a plan to recreate the Earth and its atmosphere and test their own hypotheses about rising CO2 levels.

Suney Park's hands-on activity has her students making the greenhouse effect happen in a model. Using a light bulb for the sun, they create different control groups that imitate Earth's atmosphere with the help of a soda bottle. This adds up to a meaningful experience that connects what students learn in class to real-world events.

After a month studying climate change, students create models of the earth and its atmosphere, and design experiments to test the variables involved in climate change. Students write their own driving questions, develop hypotheses, and build the models to use in their experiments.

Suney Park has her class of scientists set up their experiments step-by-step. Even though it can be chaotic and mistakes can be made, there is purpose and meaning to having the kids be responsible for all aspects of the experiment and the learning that goes on in that process.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA: Becoming Human, learn how the analysis of rock layers and ocean sediments supports the theory that rapid climate change may have jump-started human evolution two million years ago.

The purpose of this resource is to have students observe their lilac plants and identify the five phenophases (first leaf, full or 95% leafed, first bloom, full bloom and end of bloom) for each lilac plant. During the growing season, students will observe their lilac plants and identify the five phenophases (first leaf, full or 95% leafed, first bloom, full bloom and end of bloom) for each lilac plant.

Students in math and business classes work together in groups to evaluate and compare cost and environmental performance of different clothes washers.

(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.)

Learn about cloud formations over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in this video from Nature.

This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service describes the many forces that affect shorelines, including tides, weathering, erosion, and deposition.

This transect across northern Washington State was one of our most geologically and biologically diverse field trips. The trip started with a drive across the relatively uniform basalt flows of the Columbia plateau and then traversed the extremely geologically complex North Cascades accessible from a scenic route through the small, and relatively less-traveled, North Cascades National Park. Steep gradients in elevation annual precipitation and winter temperatures revealed equally dramatic changes in vegetation from cold desert shrub lands to temperate coastal rain forests. Like previous trips, this one allowed students to observe glacial processes up close and trace the history of plant succession as glaciers retreat.

(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 trip followed the Columbia River across the basalt flows of the Columbia Plateau through the Columbia Gorge that bisects the Cascade Range and then turned south along Oregons spectacular coastline. The opportunities to integrate biology and geologic processes were limited only by time as students explored the plant and animal life of rocky and sandy beaches dune fields and coastal forests. The southernmost portion of the trip extended from Crescent City, CA (site of the 1964 tsunami) through the Klamath Mountains on the Oregon/California boundary one of the most geologically dynamic landscapes in North America. The tectonic history of the region with its resulting shifts in climate patterns and merging of previously isolated land forms along with an unusual abundance of ultramafic rocks have driven the evolution of one of the most diverse floras in North American populations of carnivorous Darlingtonia (Pitcher plants) provided a dramatic example of the unusually large number of plant species endemic to the serpentine soils of this region.

(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.)