This hands-on activity explores five different forms of erosion (chemical, water, wind, glacier and temperature). Students rotate through stations and model each type of erosion on rocks, soils and minerals. The students record their observations and discuss the effects of erosion on the Earth's landscape. Students learn about how engineers are involved in the protection of landscapes and structures from erosion. Math problems are included to help students think about the effects of erosion in real-world scenarios.

Like Earth, Mars has valleys that seem to be caused by a flowing fluid, presumably water. One can see dendritic drainage patterns as well as flood channels on the Martian surface. This module focuses on whether the channels observed on Mars are evidence of great floods and, if so, on how Pathfinder helps scientists to use the debris from such floods to obtain information about four billion years of Martian geologic history.

Student teams locate a contaminant spill in a hypothetical site by measuring the pH of soil samples. Then they predict the direction of groundwater flow using mathematical modeling. They also use the engineering design process to come up with alternative treatments for the contaminated water.

This expository article, written for students in grades 4-5, explains why ice floats and how this is essential to life on earth. Modified versions are available for younger students.

Students are presented with a guide to rain garden construction in an activity that culminates the unit and pulls together what they have learned and prepared in materials during the three previous associated activities. They learn about the four vertical zones that make up a typical rain garden with the purpose to cultivate natural infiltration of stormwater. Student groups create personal rain gardens planted with native species that can be installed on the school campus, within the surrounding community, or at students' homes to provide a green infrastructure and low-impact development technology solution for areas with poor drainage that often flood during storm events.

This article features science lesson plans to teach elementary students about the sun's energy, the relationship between light and heat, albedo, and the absorption of different surfaces. National standards and literacy integrations are provided for each lesson.

Students will match pictures and descriptions to identify the basic needs of animals and to answer questions about how animals obtain oxygen, protection, food, and shelter/protection.

Students explore materials engineering by modifying the material properties of water. Specifically, they use salt to lower the freezing point of water and test it by making ice cream. Using either a simple thermometer or a mechatronic temperature sensor, students learn about the lower temperature limit at which liquid water can exist such that even if placed in contact with a material much colder than 0 degrees Celsius, liquid water does not get colder than 0 °C. This provides students with an example of how materials can be modified (engineered) to change their equilibrium properties. They observe that when mixed with salt, liquid water's lower temperature limit can be dropped. Using salt-ice mixtures to cool the ice cream mixes to temperatures lower than 0 °C works better than ice alone.

Students learn about porosity and permeability and relate these concepts to groundwater flow. They use simple materials to conduct a porosity experiment and use the data to understand how environmental engineers decide on the placement and treatment of a drinking water well.

This article highlights resources that can be used to supplement lessons on extreme weather, including games and video clips. The article appears in the free, online magazine for K-Grade 5 teachers Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The magazine focuses on the essential principles of climate science.

This site offers problem-based lessons that focus on questions: Does ground surface influence temperature? How important is water evaporation to the cooling of a surface? If my town grows, will it affect the area's temperature? Why are summer temperatures in the desert southwest so much higher than at the same latitude in the southeast?

In this water cycle activity, students investigate the evaporation process by participating in an outdoor evaporation experiment held on the school grounds. Students will determine where evaporation takes place the fastest and how nature and humans can affect the process. Observations will be done and data is recorded in each student's science notebook so that the process can be discussed and analyzed.

The web of maritime connections between Western Europe, western and central Africa, and the Americas that made up the Atlantic world is the focus of this section of "On the Water: Stories from Maritime America", an online exhibition from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Students will learn how Atlantic-based trade shaped modern world history and life in America. Topics covered are the tobacco and sugar trades, the Middle Passage and the transatlantic slave trade, and the piracy that plagued the Caribbean Sea and North American coast during this period.

Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

Students use everyday building materials sand, pea gravel, cement and water to create and test pervious pavement. They learn what materials make up a traditional, impervious concrete mix and how pervious pavement mixes differ. Groups are challenged to create their own pervious pavement mixes, experimenting with material ratios to evaluate how infiltration rates change with different mix combinations.

This formative assessment item uncovers student ideas and misconceptions about melting icebergs. It determines if students believe that water levels will rise due to melting icebergs. Resources provided will assist teachers. It gives instructional support as well as information for teachers. This probe is aligned to National Science Education Standards (NSES).

Students are introduced to our planet's structure and its dynamic system of natural forces through an examination of the natural hazards of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, tsunamis, floods and tornados, as well as avalanches, fires, hurricanes and thunderstorms. They see how these natural events become disasters when they impact people, and how engineers help to make people safe from them. Students begin by learning about the structure of the Earth; they create clay models showing the Earth's layers, see a continental drift demo, calculate drift over time, and make fault models. They learn how earthquakes happen; they investigate the integrity of structural designs using model seismographs. Using toothpicks and mini-marshmallows, they create and test structures in a simulated earthquake on a tray of Jell-O. Students learn about the causes, composition and types of volcanoes, and watch and measure a class mock eruption demo, observing the phases that change a mountain's shape. Students learn that the different types of landslides are all are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Using a small-scale model of a debris chute, they explore how landslides start in response to variables in material, slope and water content. Students learn about tsunamis, discovering what causes them and makes them so dangerous. Using a table-top-sized tsunami generator, they test how model structures of different material types fare in devastating waves. Students learn about the causes of floods, their benefits and potential for disaster. Using riverbed models made of clay in baking pans, students simulate the impact of different river volumes, floodplain terrain and levee designs in experimental trials. They learn about the basic characteristics, damage and occurrence of tornadoes, examining them closely by creating water vortices in soda bottles. They complete mock engineering analyses of tornado damage, analyze and graph US tornado damage data, and draw and present structure designs intended to withstand high winds.

This lesson introduces students to the natural resources that help plants grow. Students will work in small groups to explore natural resource items and discuss their importance to humans. The teacher then shares with students a booklet about the natural environment, which provides information via a series of concept maps and allows recording of students' experiences and thoughts through both writing and drawing. Students will also read, discuss, and illustrate booklets about seeds and plants.

Students come to see the exponential trend demonstrated through the changing temperatures measured while heating and cooling a beaker of water. This task is accomplished by first appealing to students' real-life heating and cooling experiences, and by showing an example exponential curve. After reviewing the basic principles of heat transfer, students make predictions about the heating and cooling curves of a beaker of tepid water in different environments. During a simple teacher demonstration/experiment, students gather temperature data while a beaker of tepid water cools in an ice water bath, and while it heats up in a hot water bath. They plot the data to create heating and cooling curves, which are recognized as having exponential trends, verifying Newton's result that the change in a sample's temperature is proportional to the difference between the sample's temperature and the temperature of the environment around it. Students apply and explore how their new knowledge may be applied to real-world engineering applications.