This project motivates students to learn about organic gardening by developing their own research questions, conducting research, and gardening at their school. Students will plants seeds in a class garden, observe and write about the plant's growth, document their research and observations on a sign to place by their growing plant, and present their findings to the class.

Students will learn about deep-sea tubeworms. Students will work collaboratively to create a poster or three-dimensional model of a tubeworm. Each group will then prepare a written report describing the anatomy of tubeworms, how a tubeworm obtains food and the symbiotic relationship between the tubeworm and chemosynthetic bacteria, and the role that tubeworms play in the larger cold-seep food web.

Students research the ways that humans impact coral reef ecology and identify some of the organisms that live in coral reef habitats. They will write a narrative essay as if they are one of these organisms and discuss how they are affected by human activities such as over-fishing, habitat destruction, pollution, etc.

Students will have an opportunity to develop such "live interviews" with ancient athletes; working in small groups, they will produce a script based on the results of their research and they will perform the interview for other students in the class.

In this lesson, students create a multimedia slide presentation containing facts, graphics, and sounds relating to a biographical figure based on their reading of a biography or an autobiography.

In this WebQuest students will research the natural history and biological diversity of the Mono Basin, an environment directly affected by the needs of humans. They will explore the unique environment of Mono Lake, the extreme forms of life inhabiting the area, the role of Mono Lake in the search for extraterrestrial life, and the impact humans have made on the area. In the end, they will be faced with a very tough decision: Are humans justified in taking water- the very life- from the Mono Basin to satisfy their needs?

Students investigate different marine ecosystem types, identify examples of these ecosystems and their characteristics, and locate the ecosystems on a map of the world's oceans.

Students investigate marine food webs and trophic levels, research one marine organism, this activity sand fit their organisms together in a class-created food web showing a balanced marine ecosystem.

In this lesson that tightly integrates personal writing, research, and thematic response to literature, students discuss the importance of having a recorded history of humanity. As they explore this topic, they gain a deeper understanding of the horror of Jonas’s dystopian society in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. This understanding generates a keen interest in and context for the descriptive writing of students’ own history. Students gather ideas from several sources, including their own memories, interviews, and photographs, and then write their own descriptive memoirs.

Students will investigate the possible connection between the Cambrian explosion, methane hydrates and global warming. Students will work in collaborative groups to research a organism whose fossil can be found in the Burgess Shale. They will then share information in a large-group session and discuss how methane hydrates might be involved with global warming. In an optional extension activity, students create a model of the specimen they researched.

In this lesson, students will read two informational articles in order to compare and contrast two texts in a simulated research activity.

In this lesson, students will complete the mid-unit assessment. In Part 1 in this lesson, students will analyze and interpret the information presented in different kinds of media, including photographs, charts, maps, and eyewitness accounts to find answers to the question: “How did the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire affect the people of San Francisco?” Then, they fill out the graphic organizer in order to collect information from research. They also analyze a new literary text and describe how it connects to the other literary texts that have been explored in this module.

In this lesson, students will use a graphic organizer in order to research information about buying fish caught using sustainable methods.

In this lesson, students will explain how new information connects to the topic and how the resources deepened their understanding of how to buy sustainably sourced fish.

Students will be able to describe major features of cold seep communities; list at least five organisms typical of these communities; infer probable trophic relationships among organisms typical of cold-seep communities and the surrounding deep-sea environment; describe the process of chemosynthesis in general terms; contrast chemosynthesis and photosynthesis; and describe at least five deep-sea predator organisms. Students will work in collaborative groups to research the ecology of cold seep communities and orally present their findings to the rest of the class. The teacher will also lead an effort to create a food web showing the ecological relationships of these communities.

Students research four additional examples of physical geography and borders. They explore how mountains, oceans, and islands create physical barriers that affect the country borders in Europe.

In this lesson, students work in groups to research the different aspects of the human heart. The groups work through steps to create a multimedia presentation following preset criteria.

Having studied the archetypes of heros, students will be asked to complete a collaborative essay of a hero's journey utilizing narrative writing skills, the stages of the hero's journey, and elements, such as supernatural beings or creatures, found in mythology.  Students will bring the events of their hero’s journey to life by using dialogue, descrition, transition phrases, and sensory language.   Using a hyper-doc students will work in groups to create their collaborative story.If you want an option for students to have their own individual work have them independently complete Phase 4 of the hyper-doc.

In this lesson, students will use short video clips and other web resources to study the group of animals known as billfish and learn how ocean currents influence the eating habits of various fish. Students will also have the opportunity to shoot their own video to create a nature documentary to present in the classroom.