This classroom activity helps students understand how the angle of the Sun affects temperatures around the globe. After experimenting with a heat lamp and thermometers at differing angles, students apply what they learned to explain temperature variations on Earth. The printable six-page handout includes a series of inquiry-based questions to get students thinking about what they already know about temperature patterns, detailed experiment directions and a worksheet that helps students use the experiment results to gain a deeper understanding of seasonal temperature changes and why Antarctica is always so cold.

In this problem-based learning module, students will raise awareness about the amount of excess food wasted each day in America's schools highlights the consumptive mindset that our county has. Each day in third world countries, as well as our own, children go without the proper nutrition needed to focus on other activities. This module will raise student awareness about the amount of food taken from the service line and then placed in waste receptacles. Students will gather and analyze data regarding wasted food in an attempt to design a solution to reduce food waste. Sation rotation will allow to conduct research into the global problems associated with the lack of food and malnutrition. Mathematical skills will be required to calculate rates and percentages of consumption which will be used for analysis.

A park ranger needs to build a zipline to drop food supplies to her mentor park ranger at the bottom of a gorge. Unfortunately, she does not have the instructions to build the zipline according to the proper specifications. Without directions, she is unsure of the correct angles to attach her zipline to each tree. Additionally, she needs to figure out how to open the chute to drop the food supplies. Challenge: Create a zip line that will release from her bucket (paper cup) the food supplies (represented by a marble) onto the target (placed 5/8 of the way down the zipline) before the gear reaches the opposite end of the zip line.