Students focus on making statistical questions better. They write down 5 real-world questions that can be answered using numbers. For each question they determine: Is it possible to answer? Can we answer it exactly (or close enough)? Do we know what each part of it means?

These two short activities set up tragedies of the commons – one in water (lemonade) and the other in fish (M&Ms). The debriefing guides students through analysis of the different incentives embodied in common and private ownership and helps them understand how the rules of the game shape people’s behavior – and their use of valuable environmental amenities.

In this simulation activity, students play the roles of community members wrestling with the problem of cleaning up a polluted pond on their common property. They quickly discover that because of their different values and interests, the important question is not whether to clean up the pond, but how much clean-up they are willing to pay for.

Students use a UV meter to monitor UV over a period of several hours and correlate it to atmospheric conditions. After collecting data, students will create a graph and also compare their data to the day's UV index forecast.

Students demonstrate the importance of reducing direct UV exposure and illustrate the degree of protection provided by various sources of shade.

Students make a wind streamer for use as a wind vane to discover from which direction the wind is blowing.

Students will relate weather conditions to ground level ozone and air quality conditions.

Students demonstrate the rate at which the sun's energy is absorbed is affected by the color of a material.

Students should be able to identify the various levels of the pyramid and name
activities from each level that they enjoy and recognize that in order to keep our bodies healthy, we should all do more activities from the bottom of the pyramid and fewer activities from the top.

Students will use a series of clues and their knowledge of incentives and voluntary exchange to solve the sweatshop mystery. Students will fully examine the issue – an examination that must include the accounts from workers, themselves, who often welcome the opportunity sweatshops offer and fear that foreign agitation will cause factories to close or relocate.

In this activity, students are introduced to static equilibrium by learning how forces and torques are balanced in a well-designed engineering structure. A tower crane is presented as a simplified two-dimensional case. Using Popsicle sticks and hot glue, student teams design, build and test a simple tower crane model according to these principles, ending with a team competition.

This brief classroom activity can be used to informally assess students ability to apply the principles of economic reasoning to environmental issues.

In this activity, students will examine examples of laws from Hammurabi's Code from the ancient Babylonian civilization. In small groups, they will determine what those laws tell them about the ancient civilization.

This reading-based activity is a combination guided discussion and paper-and-pencil exercise examining the impact of trade barriers on various participant groups in the sugar market. U.S. sugar policy creates a tale of 2 markets and offers a clear illustration of who benefits from and who bears the costs of market restrictions. In the process of analyzing and comparing those markets, students rediscover three important economic constants: voluntary trade creates wealth; incentives always matter; and economic change creates winners and losers.