This video segment, adapted from ZOOM, explores how sound waves travel differently through solids than through air, in this case, a metal clothes hanger.

Students will listen for sounds in the garden paying careful attention to volume (how loud or soft a sound), pitch (how high or low) , or if it is a natural or man- made sound.

This lesson introduces students to the space environment. It covers the major differences between the environment on Earth and that of outer space and the engineering challenges that arise because of these discrepancies. In order to prepare students for the upcoming lessons on the human body, this lesson challenges them to think about how their bodies would change and adapt in the unique environment of space.

Student pairs design, build and test model vehicles capable of rolling down a ramp and then coasting freely as far as possible. The challenge is to make the vehicles entirely out of dry pasta using only adhesive (such as hot glue) to hold the components together. Creativity is encouraged and different types of pasta are provided to support different functions such as round pasta for wheels and sheet pasta for the chassis. Students become familiar with the concepts of gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy and rolling resistance. Teams follow the steps of the engineering design process as they design, test and redesign their small-sized vehicles, working within the project's material constraints. The winner of the competitive final event is the pasta car that travels the longest distance beyond the bottom of the ramp.

Lesson plan detailing on speed and energy by using toy race cars, with and without weight, to describe speed and electromagnetic energy.  

This video segment adapted from Shedding Light on Science uses historical illustrations and everyday examples to show that light has a speed and does not travel instantaneously.

Students see how potential energy (stored energy) can be converted into kinetic energy (motion). Acting as if they were engineers designing vehicles, they use rubber bands, pencils and spools to explore how elastic potential energy from twisted rubber bands can roll the spools. They brainstorm, prototype, modify, test and redesign variations to the basic spool racer design in order to meet different design criteria, ultimately facing off in a race competition. These simple-to-make devices store potential energy in twisted rubber bands and then convert the potential energy to kinetic energy upon release.

In this activity, students calculate electricity use by state and determine, using Google Earth, how much land would be required to replace all sources of electricity with solar panels.

This profile provides maps, charts, and tables pertaining to state capacity and generation of renewable electricity. Tables include data for total net summer capacity and total net generation with rankings for each category. Users can view this data alphabetically by state, by capacity, or by generation. An interactive map allows users to navigate to specific state profiles and view the top 10 renewable capacity states simultaneously.

Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization. They see how a beam of light is refracted (bent) through various transparent mediums. While learning how a magnifying glass works, students see how the orientation of an image changes with the distance of the lens from its focal point. They also discover how a prism works by refracting light and making rainbows. And, students investigate the polar nature of light using sunglasses and polarized light film.

In this activity, students act as engineers to determine which type of insulation would conserve the most energy.

This visualization is an interactive Energy System Map, which includes short write-ups introducing students to fundamental energy system topics, paired with animated videos and deep dive resources.

Assignment #1 Student-led discussion of articles from the literature
We assign one or two groups of two or three students to each of four or four or five topics related to climate change, and provide each group a set of related articles from the literature on their assigned topic. The group will lead a one-hour, in-class discussion on the topic, with up to a dozen students and one instructor in each discussion. In preparation for the discussion, the discussion co-leaders must collectively write a set of "Reading Questions" about each assigned article, which help readers focus on the key points made by the articles and can serve as points of discussion. The other students participating in the discussion must read the articles with the aid of these Reading Questions and annotate the portions of the articles that address the Reading Questions. We (instructors) evaluate the Reading Questions written by the co-leaders (they receive a shared grade for these), and we also check the annotated articles turned in by the other discussion participants to ensure that they prepared to participate in the discussion (they receive individual grades this). Discussion co-leaders each receive a grade for the quality of their discussion leadership.

The purpose of this assignment is in part to help students prepare for their final writing assignment by requiring that they read a set of articles closely enough to help other students discuss and understand the key points, and get feedback about their level of understanding, up to a month before the final paper on the topic is due. The immediate outcome that we expect from this assignment is a demonstration that students can read the assigned articles critically, identify and articulate the key points, and help engage other students in a discussion about the articles, including conceptually important or difficult aspects of them.
Assignment #2: Final writing assignment

For this assignment, which follows from the previous one, students are asked to:

locate two or more significant additional articles that relate closely to the articles on which they based the discussion that they co-led; and
write a 8-12 page (typed, double spaced) overview of the history and current state of our scientific understanding about the topic(s) covered by the set of discussion articles, based on the articles themselves plus relevant material presented in class or in assigned reading. In particular, wherever justified by the source material, students should try to include the following in the narrative:

initial observations/evidence;
initial hypotheses posed to account for initial observations/evidence (including external forcings and feedbacks);
subsequent observations/evidence that have confirmed or disproved earlier hypotheses;
technology that made making observations/gathering evidence possible and led to breakthroughs in understanding;
scientific controversies and how they played out historically or are currently playing out;
current understanding and remaining uncertainties.

The outcome should be a written demonstration of the student's ability to analyze and synthesize a set of articles from the literature and supporting materials provided in class to describe the history, current state, and unresolved aspects of our scientific understanding of an interdisciplinary aspect of climate change.

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A design challenge activity that explores renewable energy, sustainable farming, and design thinking to create new solutions for growing food in school communities.

This article provides elementary school teachers with background knowledge about science concepts needed to understand the first of seven essential principles of climate literacy--the sun is the primary source of energy for our climate system. Graphs, diagrams, and oneline resources provide more background for the teacher. The article appears in a free online magazine that focuses on the seven essential princples of the climate sciences.

This lesson will introduce solar power, how it works, and energy storage to students through hands on materials and activities. It will also foster an understanding of renewable energy and how we can use renewable energy to power our cities.

This 11-minute podcast and accompanying lesson guide encourage students to evaluate the supply chain of green technologies in the context of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.

The sustainability learning suites is a set of learning objects created for people with a post-secondary science background, organized in six themes: Systems thinking; Sustainable development; Population; Energy; Water and Materials. The materials are designed on Fink's Taxonomy of Significant Learning and include: learning objectives, editable slides with notes and embedded classroom activities, activities of 1-3 hours, assessments, and a set of 24 videos.

The sustainability learning suites is a set of learning objects created for people with a post-secondary science background, organized in six themes: Systems thinking; Sustainable development; Population; Energy; Water and Materials. The materials are designed on Fink's Taxonomy of Significant Learning and include: learning objectives, editable slides with notes and embedded classroom activities, activities of 1-3 hours, assessments, and a set of 24 videos.

Sustainability is a complex term applied to many different contexts in a variety of ways. As a result, it can be challenging to determine how sustainable something really is. In this module, students will use an analytical framework with publicly available data to formulate questions, analyze data, and report metrics of sustainability.