All resources in Culver Academies

Newton's Law of Cooling

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Students come to see the exponential trend demonstrated through the changing temperatures measured while heating and cooling a beaker of water. This task is accomplished by first appealing to students' real-life heating and cooling experiences, and by showing an example exponential curve. After reviewing the basic principles of heat transfer, students make predictions about the heating and cooling curves of a beaker of tepid water in different environments. During a simple teacher demonstration/experiment, students gather temperature data while a beaker of tepid water cools in an ice water bath, and while it heats up in a hot water bath. They plot the data to create heating and cooling curves, which are recognized as having exponential trends, verifying Newton's result that the change in a sample's temperature is proportional to the difference between the sample's temperature and the temperature of the environment around it. Students apply and explore how their new knowledge may be applied to real-world engineering applications.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Karl Abdelnour, Nicole Abaid, Robert Eckhardt

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Adirondack Mountains

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The Adirondack Mountains tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours, created by a group of New York State science educators. This tour provides an introduction to the geology of the Great Range and the High Peaks as viewed from Algonquin Peak. It also addresses the issue of acid rain, which is a persistent environmental concern in the Adirondacks.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Allegheny Plateau

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The Allegheny Plateau tours are part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours, created by a group of New York State science educators. These tours showcase examples of Allegheny geology, including the geomorphology of glacial features near Tully, New York, southern Cayuga Lake, the geology and geomorphology of Letchworth State Park and its waterfalls, as well as waterfalls and creeks in the Ithaca Gorges. Schoharie Creek can be toured from its mouth to its source, the St. Lawrence Chesapeake and Valley Heads Moraine can be investigated to examine drainage patterns, and another tour investigates the unique geology and ecology of the Rome Sand Plains. Environmental tours also address the 2006 flooding in the Allegheny Plateau near Port Jarvis and Livingston Manor and provide an overview of the water supply system of the City of New York.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Authors: Bob Dedrick, Eric Fermann, Kevin Finerghty, Peter Wilder, Robert DeMarco, Tim Brisley, Walter Potocki

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Atlantic Coastal Plain

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The Atlantic Coastal Plain tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours, created by a group of New York State science educators. This tour introduces students to glacial erratics on Long Island, the Ronkonkoma terminal moraine, and the Rock Hill erratic. Coastal erosion and deposition can be studied by viewing dunes, beaches, and wave cut banks.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Eric Cohen

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Champlain Lowlands

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The Champlain Lowlands tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth tours, created by a group of New York State science educators. This tour includes views of the gorge of the Ausable River, cut through Late Cambrian Potsdam Sandstone, and the geology of the Champlain Thrust Fault, a low angle thrust fault formed as the proto-Atlantic Ocean closed during the Taconic Oregeny. When it was still connected to the ocean, Lake Champlain was home to whales, whose fossils are now entombed in the lake sediments. The tour also includes classroom activities for students.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Erie Ontario Lowlands

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The Erie Ontario Lowlands tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth tours. This tour includes glacial history, features, and views of Niagara Falls, the Niagara Escarpment, current and former spillways, and the locks at Lockport, New York. Students can also learn about the geology and glacial history of Canandaigua Lake, one of New York's Finger Lakes, which discharges into the Lowlands. There is also a lab activity in which students analyze maps, images, and information to perform an environmental assessment of the Cascade Mill development.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Authors: Bob Dedrick, Kevin Finerghty, Walter Potocki

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Hudson Highlands

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The Hudson Highlands tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours, created by a group of New York State science educators. This tour introduces Hudson Highlands geology, including glaciology at Bear Mountain, views of the Highlands, and the Ramapo Fault to the south. It also offers other information about the area, including some animals, New York City's water supply, and the Great Swamp.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Authors: Drew Patrick, Robert DeMarco, Steve Kluge

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Hudson Mohawk Lowlands

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The Hudson Mohawk Lowlands tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth tours, created by a group of New York State science educators. This tour introduces students to limestone quarrying along the western shore of the Hudson River south of Catskill, New York. They can follow the courses of the Mohawk River and Erie Canal eastward to the Cohoes Falls and the confluence of the Mohawk with the Hudson River. It also provides a look at issues involved with the cleanup of PCB-laden sediments in the Hudson River.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Tim Brisley

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Newark Lowlands

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The Newark Lowlands tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours created by a group of New York State science educators. This tour lets students see the Ramapo Fault at the Lowlands' northwestern boundary and the Palisades Sill on the western shore of the Hudson River. The Sparkill Gap, a pre-Ice Age weak spot in the Palisades Sill through which the Hudson River once flowed, can be observed. There is also an activity in which students explore the economic, social, and environmental issues associated with constructing the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: St. Lawrence Lowlands

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The St. Lawrence Lowlands tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours. This tour allows students to explore the Thousand Islands, formed of granite which has withstood the erosive energy of the St. Lawrence River, creating thousands of islands ranging in size from single rocks to over 25 square miles. There is also an activity in which students map some of the many shipwrecks that have accumulated at the entrance to the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Taconic Mountains

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The Taconic Mountains tour highlights the geology and natural environment of several landscape regions, including the structure of the Highlands Province basement rocks, which were affected by the Taconic Orogeny. Students can view biotite-rich schists and the tight isoclinic folds of the Walloomsac Formation, as well as the Taconic angular unconformity at the south end of Becraft Mountain. Bedding thrusts are also evident within the Roundout Formation and overlying Manlius Formation. They can also examine metamorphosed Briarcliff Dolostone containing yellow, white and black chert layers and Everett Phylite, which represents a metamorphic lithologic transition from slate to phyllite. Dramatically folded calcareous rocks are visible at the Bennington, Vermont bypass, and students can also view Stark's Knob, where pillow lavas formed as Ordovician basalts erupted under the waters of a shallow sea.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Bob Mozer

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: The Manhattan Prong

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The Manhattan Prong tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours. This tour takes students to Central Park in New York City to see metamorphic rock, glacial features, differential weathering, and Cleopatra's Needle, an Egyptian obelisk brought to the city in 1881. They can also examine bedrock, float, mass wasting, jointing, and glacial polish in the Pound Ridge Reservation, and observe a metamorphic outcrop of Fordham Gneiss near Katonah, New York. The convergent boundary features of the Staten Island serpentine belt, formed during the Taconic Orogeny, can be viewed, and students can follow the Mianus River Gorge as it crosses the Cameron's Line fault. There is also a tour of the New York City water supply system with a lab activity to accompany it.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Authors: Drew Patrick, Zach Miller

New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth: Tug Hill Plateau

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The Tug Hill Plateau tour is part of the New York Landscape Regions Collection of Google Earth Tours, created by a group of New York State science educators. The tour introduces students to the many waterfalls of the plateau, which is formed of layers of sandstone and shale. It also points out that the plateau recieves more snow than any location east of the Rocky Mounatins due to the lake-effect from Lake Ontario and its elevation, which is 2,100 feet at the highest point. There is also a visit to a fish hatchery.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Operation Ruby Throat: The Hummingbird Project Protocol

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The purpose of this resource is to observe seasonal migration patterns, feeding habits, and nesting behavior of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) in North and Central America. All students will learn about hummingbird natural history and ecology. Students will learn how to identify and age male and female Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and to observe migration and feeding behavior. Students will learn how to make connections among hummingbird behavior and weather, climate, food availability, seasonality, photoperiod (day length), and other environmental factors.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Homework/Assignment, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: The GLOBE Program, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)

The Optimization of Slime

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Using their knowledge of the phases of matter, the scientific method, and polymers, student teams work as if they are chemical engineers to optimize the formula for slime. Hired by the fictional company, Slime Productions, students are challenged to modify the chemical composition of the basic formula for slime to maximize its "bounce factor."

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Leslie Stiles