This Science Update looks at the unexpected impact marine reserves have on their surroundings. The original update is an audio file, but a transcript of the update is also provided on the page. Supplemental resources, including a background essay and discussion questions, are also provided.

This article describes a number of creative projects that incorporate art and literacy skills into a science unit on biomes and ecosystems.

In this short video, students learn how fire plays an important role in the survival of the plants (such as venus flytraps and longleaf pines) in the habitat of Carolina Beach State Park.

In this short video and accompanying activity and readings, students learn about the Venus Fly Trap and how it adapts to its environment to survive.

In this short video, students join Emily and Dr. Bronwyn Williams from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences as they head to three different North Carolina locations to explore the world of crayfish!

In this short video, accompanying activity, and readings, students learn about the wildflowers at Medoc Mountain State Park. These resources examine how wildflowers survive and their role in their ecosystem.

In this short video and accompanying activity and readings, students learn about the Weymouth Woods Sandhills Preserve and the many unique plants and animals that call this type of ecosystem home - including the red-cockaded woodpecker.

Students begin by brainstorming a list of ways that organisms may interact within an ecosystem. Then students will have an opportunity to share their list with a peer and with the class. Next, students will create a jot chart that will detail the five relationships that may exist between organisms in an ecosystem: competition, predation, mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will examine food webs and predict the patterns of interactions that may exist between and among organisms in an ecosystem.

As sea level rises, wetlands and marshes must move inland, or drown. The Sonoma Land Trust is using innovative strategies to restore and enhance marshlands and the ecosystems they support.

Place and Location are two of the five themes of geography and a natural starting point for a study of the Arctic and Antarctica. Location answers the question, "Where am I?" while the study of place asks, "What kind of a place is it?" and, "How does this place connect to my hometown?" This issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears examines how you can introduce the Arctic and Antarctica and use science, geography, literacy, and technology to help your students compare and contrast these two dramatically different areas as well as their own home. Get ready for an adventure as you and your students develop your polar sense of place!

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online professional development magazine for elementary teachers which focuses on preparing teachers to teach polar science concepts in an already congested curriculum by integrating inquiry-based science with literacy teaching. Such an integrated approach can increase students' science knowledge, academic language, reading comprehension, and written and oral discourse abilities.

This article assembles free resources from the Tundra: Life in the Polar Extremes issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and 3-5.

Working with the Maine Coastal Program at the State Planning Office, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute created this innovative website that combines three-dimensional computer models of the Gulf of Maine's many landscapes with stunning underwater photography. The website has important background information on the Gulf of Maine, which provides context for first-time "visitors." From here, visitors can learn about three fascinating aquatic species (lobsters, alewives, and brook trout) and two physical environments (the Bay of Fundy and Cashes Ledge). These segments take visitors on a trip from the mountainous, upper reaches of the Gulf of Maine watershed to the middle of the marine realm 80 miles off the New England coast. Through these journeys, people will gain an appreciation of the Gulf of Maine, and become better stewards of this bountiful and beautiful resource

Understanding Biodiversity presents an overview of biodiversity, its importance and relevance to humans, all living things, and the Earth. It includes species pages and a template to engage and involve students in real-life data collection.

This lab-based course covers the foundational principles of modern life science as outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It also includes approximately a third of the Earth and Space Science standards, primarily those connected to environmental science and ecology. The course emphasizes all three dimensions of the NGSS, with special attention to the crosscutting concepts of Patterns and Energy and Matter. Additionally, scientific inquiry and engineering design practices are emphasized throughout the course. The course is designed to follow a chemistry course and so builds on student understandings of molecules as they explore the biomolecular underpinnings of life's functions, the evolution of life, and the interactions of life in ecosystems. Technological, historical, political, and environmental aspects of biology will also be addressed. Critical thinking, data analysis, and argumentation from evidence are also emphasized.

In this high school unit on ecosystems, students investigate the case of the rapid increase and decline of the buffalo population in the Serengeti. It motivates students to ask questions and develop initial hypotheses for what could have changed in the ecosystem to create such drastic population changes. Students analyze data from many populations of organisms in the Serengeti to figure out how disease eradication in the 1960s led to the major changes we see in the Serengeti today. In Bend 2, students evaluate the claim that trees store carbon and can reduce the impact of climate change. Students figure out how photosynthesis and cellular respiration are key mechanisms to explaining the role of trees in climate mitigation. Finally, students explore and compare climate change mitigation solutions.

We apply the rules of ecosystems from the Serengeti to other ecosystems with different keystone species.

Students will choose one keystone species [see list on activity sheet] to explain population changes in other ecosystems.

In ecosystems, there are many factors that can affect population sizes. Scientists often used computer simulations to model these ecosystems. Since we have looked at 2 variables-food source and climate-we can use these simulations to reflect what we think we know and confirm or deny what we have figured out so far.

For this unit plan, see the old unit calendar (link on left sidebar, click ALT7 tab at the bottom).  Once we update this unit to the new Doc template, we will post it here. This is now unit 7, but it used to be unit 4 (we will update file and folder numbering as we continue to revise the units). Thanks for your patience as we work hard this year to update all of the materials to the new unit template and unit/standards arrangements.

In this activity students model the cycles of matter by creating an ecosystem in a jar and observing how it changes over time. Students will also research the nitrogen, water, and carbon cycles and prepare presentations to share information with their peers.