In this activity, students explore real data about renewable energy potential in their state using a mapping tool developed by NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) to investigate the best locations for wind energy, solar energy, hydropower, geothermal energy, and biomass.

In this activity, students become familiar with the online Renewable Energy Living Lab interface and access its real-world solar energy data to evaluate the potential for solar generation in various U.S. locations.

In this activity, students work through the process of evaluating the feasibility of photovoltaic solar power in 4 different US cities.

In this activity, students play the role of energy consultants to a CEO, assessing and documenting the feasibility, cost, and environmental impact of installing solar power on 4 company facilities with the same design but in different geographical locations.

This video segment explores whether, in principle, renewable energy resources could meet today's global energy needs of about 15.7 terawatts.

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

A case based upon the environmental devastation of the Aral Sea that illustrates economic concepts of opportunity cost and social marginal cost.

This activity requires students to research, design, construct, and test a solar oven. Students will collect data from their own individual oven to combine with research of "real-life" solar ovens in an activity ending scientific paper.

This article provides an overview of educational resources available from polar research programs.

This is the ninth and final lesson in a series of lessons about climate change. This lesson focuses on the various activities that humans can do to mitigate the effects of climate change. This includes information on current and predicted CO2 emission scenarios across the globe, alternative energy sources, and how people are currently responding to climate change. Importantly, this lesson is motivating in showing students that they can make a difference.

This article, part of Biodiversity Counts, examines how to responsibly collect and keep specimens. The article discusses the reasons why collecting specimens is important and the behaviors and attitudes that define responsible collecting for both scientists and students.

This video segment from Kentucky Life describes how scientists control pollination of one of the few remaining American chestnut trees to develop blight resistant trees.

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.

Cretaceous and Tertiary strata exposed in northern Alaska record clastic sediment deposition within a foreland basin adjacent to the ancestral Brooks Range, and form part of an important petroleum play. The goal of this U.S. Geological Survey report is to synthesize the complex stratigraphy of this area into a more simplified scheme. It discusses the regional geology of northern Alaska and the stratigraphy of the Colville Basin in detail. Maps, cross sections, correlation charts, and numerous outcrop photos with detailed captions accompany the text.

This activity is a field investigation where students gather data, draw detailed diagrams, and write descriptions about living organisms and non-living things seen in a small school ground area.

In this field exercise for an introductory environmental science course, students investigate plant cover and type in a riparian area using transects. The final assignment is a lab report that includes a summary data table, a graph of cover types along their transect and an analysis of riparian health.

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Students build on their understanding and feel for flow rates, as gained from the associated Faucet Flow Rate activity, to estimate the flow rate of a local river. The objective is to be able to relate laboratory experiment results to the environment. They use the U.S. Geological Survey website (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt) to determine the actual flow rate data for their river, and compare their estimates to the actual flow rate. For this activity to be successful, choose a nearby river and take a field trip or show a video so students gain a visual feel for the flow of the nearby river.

The students will participate in listening and discussing the story, Under One Rock: Bugs, Slugs, and Other Ughs, by Anthony D. Fredericks and illustrated by Jennifer DiRubbio. On the following day, we will explore our nearby forest searching for some of the animals mentioned in the story. For the third day of this lesson, the students will share what they have written and drawn in their nature journals from the previous day's walk.

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.