In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to set up a Berlese funnel and coax tiny arthropods out of their habitat for further study. The page includes a labeled illustration.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to set up a yellow pan trap to attract insects drawn to the color yellow. The supplies required are readily available.

In this Biodiversity Counts activity, students learn how to create and set up a pitfall trap to catch soil dwellers. The online activity page includes easy-to-follow directions for building a trap with recycled plastic containers, stones, wood/cardboard, and a bait of the students' choosing. Students let the trap sit either for a few hours or overnight to see what they have caught. To expand their investigation, students are challenged to experiment with different baits to see if they can attract different arthropods.

This online article, from Biodiversity Counts, is a general-purpose tip sheet for using a dichotomous key. The article outlines a three step process using a tree as an example.

This site assembles the information from the April 1997 American Museum of Natural History symposium on the role humans have played, and continue to play, in the extinction of species. It presents an overview of extinction, the various hypotheses that explain this irreplaceable loss, details about what happened 14,000 years ago and the ongoing role humans play in the extinction process, a bestiary with notes and illustrations about some of the mammals that have gone extinct from the Pleistocene era through the 20th century, and what can be done to prevent another extinction event.

This OLogy activity gives kids a chance to test their investigative skills while learning about daily life for the Incas. Inca Investigation begins with an introduction to archaeologist Craig Morris and the ancient Inca city that his team excavated in the Andes mountains. Detailed directions are given for how to play Inca Investigation, which includes tips to help them better examine evidence. Each time they correctly identify a place, they are awarded an Inca Chronicle. They have the option of reading the chronicles online or printing their collection of chronicles.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, marine biologist Melanie Stiassny introduces kids to biodiversity in the ocean. The article contains three engaging, kid-friendly sections: an overview of six major groups of life on Earth that challenges kids to determine the correct group for nine different life forms, a timeline that tracks the development of life on Earth since the planet formed and a look at the biggest animal that has ever lived.

This six-day unit provides an in-depth look at the dynamic forces at work on the sea floor. Throughout the unit, students collect their findings in a portfolio. The comprehensive curriculum materials include teacher tools such as individually downloadable readings and detailed daily breakdowns of tasks, a hands-on experiment, three activities about how scientists find deep sea vents and two activities about the thriving ecosystems found in deep sea vents.

This article, part of Biodiversity Counts, provides insight into keeping field journals. The article discusses why journals are so important both to scientists and to the museums and institutions that employ them and has tips for how to keep a field journal.

This online article is from the Museum's Science Explorations, a collaboration between AMNH and Scholastic designed to promote science literacy. Written for students in grades 3-6, this article from SuperScience magazine is an interview with AMNH herpetologist Darrel Frost, in which he discusses the upcoming Lizards & Snakes: Alive exhibition. There is a hands-on activity, Create an Exhibit, that challenges students to design a museum exhibit that includes lizards and snakes

In this interview, Mark Siddall talks about his work as an invertebrate systematist and how marine organisms eat. Using a question and answer format, information is presented on the feeding habits, behaviors and strategies of various types of marine animals.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they take a close-up look at biodiversity in a city park. The site opens by telling kids that, despite appearances, a great deal of biodiversity exists in cities. That from tiny mites to mighty trees, thousands of species thrive there. It then takes them to a slice of life from a thriving city park, where they are asked to find 10 hidden critters living alongside the trees, plants, and insects. Each time they locate one of the tiny critters, they are rewarded with a quick look at its importance to the habitat.

Produced by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, Life in the Leaf Litter is a guide to the diversity of soil organisms and the crucial role that invertebrates play in woodland ecosystems. The booklet was based, in part, on a leaf litter survey conducted by the CBC's Metro Program and the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology in Central Park's woodlands, which led to the discovery of a new genus and species of centipede, Nannarrup hoffmani. The booklet may be downloaded as a pdf or ordered free of charge.

Did you know that when you look at a star, your eyes are capturing light that traveled all the way from the star to your eye? Learn more about how light carries information from distant objects. This Moveable Museum article, available as a nine-page printable PDF file, offers a kid-friendly look at how information about distant objects comes to us in the form of light. It includes suggested resources for further research.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they are introduced to Einstein's life and work with four engaging and kid-friendly areas. Equation Invasion, a look at the world's most famous equation about the relationship between energy and mass. Web Master, the scientists whose ideas and discoveries shaped Einstein's career. Light the Way, an introduction to "the fastest thing in the universe" and the waves it travels in. Everyday Einstein: LASERS, a comic strip that illustrates how Einstein's work led to the development of lasers.

This OLogy trivia game offers a fun way to test kids' knowledge of light. The game board (included in a printable PDF) represents an atom, with a central nucleus circled by two orbits. Each player represents an electron that has been bumped into the atom's outer unstable orbit. Kids answer the questions about light on the trivia cards (included in a printable PDF) as they move around, circling the outer orbit. The first player to make it around the game board pops back into the stable orbit, emits light from the atom, and wins. Two additional overview articles are included with the activity: Where Do Photons Come From? and Einstein Sheds Some Light on a Mystery.

This reference list identifies six of the best herbaria housed and maintained by large research institutions and universities in the U.S. Where possible, it includes the following information for each herbarium: mailing address and phone number,Web site and email address, details about its specimen collection,whether it is open to the public or only to scientists and researchers, and the type of support offered, including whether a searchable database of its collection is available on the Web.

Produced by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, these four guides form a four-part series, Living With Biodiversity: What You Can Really Do For the Environment. The four guides in pdf format are: Biodiversity and Your Food, Biodiversity and Your Energy Use, Biodiversity and What You Buy and Biodiversity and Your Water Supply.

Students learn about the subjective value of objects in this Moveable Museum lesson plan by "interpreting" each other's important cultural artifacts. The 11-page PDF guide has educator materials with background information, teacher strategies, assessment guidelines, and detailed notes about the curriculum standards addressed.

This article, part of Biodiversity Counts, provides insight into what it takes to maintain an arthropod collection. The article contains advice to students for setting up and maintaining a small-scale collection, including what tools are needed, safe alternatives to chemicals for killing and preserving specimens and some of the techniques the museum uses to protect specimens that students may want to adopt.