This article provides background information related to natural resources of the poles, and renewable and non-renewable energy.

The purpose of this resource is to help students understand the connection between remote sensing, computer imagery, and land cover assessment. Students translate their maps created in the beginning activity into digital code and exchange the digitized versions of their maps with students in another school.

The purpose of this resource is to familiarize students with the importance of perspective and various scales of remotely sensed data. Students create a 3-D model of an area and develop a classification system for the landforms in their model. The maps can then be used to answer certain questions about the environment.

This article looks at the growing energy consumption from consumer electronics and the increases it may cause in greenhouse gases and global warming. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears.

This page provides access to digital maps and supporting material used in developing future scenarios for the Willamette River Basin. The Existing Conditions Section contains digital maps in ArcInfo format organized into six categories called Theme Groups. These maps provide the starting point for development of the maps in the Possible Futures section. In the Futures Scenarios section, maps representing three future scenarios are available. Within each scenario, separate maps are provided for projections at ten year intervals from the year 2000 to 2050 inclusive.

Oceans play a significant role in determining and moderating the effects of energy imbalances. Students will begin this lesson by working with temperature data to reinforce the importance of protocols, practice computing statistical measures of data and interpreting their significance. The lesson continues with investigations into daily and annual energy cycles. Using a sea surface environment visualizer, students then identify patterns of sea surface current and temperature data. Note that this is lesson five of five on the Ocean Motion website. Each lesson investigates ocean surface circulation using satellite and model data and can be done independently. See Related URL's for links to the Ocean Motion Website that provide science background information, data resources, teacher material, student guides and a lesson matrix.

In this activity, students will learn how water can be polluted by algal blooms. They will grow algae with different concentrations of fertilizer or nutrients and analyze their results as environmental engineers working to protect a local water resource.

This list of 12 investigative questions is designed to help students observe how insects interact with plants in their habitat. The one-page printable PDF list includes questions about the insect behavior and the plant characteristics.

This free, online article, developed for elementary teachers, describes a Kindergarten polar science, standards aligned, unit centered on The Polar Express developing literacy, math, and science skills.

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

This handout is designed to enhance a visit to the museum's Hall of the Universe and Space Show. The printable two-page handout includes information about water, energy, elements, and the other factors whose favorable balance allows life to exist on Earth, an overview, with illustrations, of how our solar system was formed and questions for students to answer based on the information in this handout and the exhibits at the museum.

One of Southern California’s few remaining tidal marshes—and the habitat it provides for marine life and endangered birds—is threatened by sea level rise. A collaborative effort is underway to help these wetlands stay above water.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, examines how elementary teachers can introduce the Arctic and Antarctica and use science, geography, literacy, and technology to help students compare and contrast these two dramatically different areas as well as their own home.

This article, written for students in grades 4-5, introduces the concept of albedo and describes the shrinking of Arctic sea ice. Modified versions are available for students in younger grades.

The purpose of this resource is to investigate the center pixel of a homogeneous land Cover Site in order to understand that individual land areas are part of a larger land system.

The purpose of this resource is to investigate the idea that every dynamic system has energy and matter in different forms.

The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences is an international forum bringing together researchers, theoreticians, and practitioners interested in applying dynamical systems theory, far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, self-organization, neural nets, fractals cellular automata, and related forms of chaos, catastrophes, bifurcations, nonlinear dynamics, and complexity theories to psychology and the life sciences. This website includes information that explains the basics of the chaos theory and provided tutorials to help explain this concept. In addition, conference reports, journal articles, and a data library is available for users to obtain more information on the Chaos Theory or the Society that hosts this page. This resource is part of the Biocomplexity collection. http://serc.carleton.edu/biocomplexity/

This site provides fun activities for children to do and make, while they learn about space and Earth science, and the technology that enables science. The Teachers Corner on the WWW site contains curriculum supplements originally published in the ITEA (International Technology Education Association) Technology Transfer Teacher magazine.

The Take Action column in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle suggests actions young people (K-grade 5) can take to reduce the impacts of climate change. The magazine examines the recognized essential principles of climate literacy and the climate sciences as well as the guiding principle for informed climate decisions.

This article describes energy efficiency as it relates to home and school energy use and provides ways that children can help.