The AQ-IQ Contest for Seventh Grade Students has students creating a project on an air quality problem, looking for solutions to the problem, and creating a poster, on-line interactive, artist, or video project to educate others about the issue. Students will submit the projects and bibliographies using an on-line tool. The pest projects will be invited to a recognition ceremony and receive a prize package. Visit the AQ-IQ Landing Page for more information and resources: http://web.eenorthcarolina.org/resource/about.aspx?s=121764.0.0.37430

In this activity, students investigate the concept that air takes up space by experimenting with a tub full of water and an empty cup. Students turn the cup upside down and lower it into the water so that they can observe what happens. Students also try this with a crushed paper towel inside the cup to illustrate that the air prevents water from entering the cup.

This is an introductory activity / lesson for a larger investigation into the properties of air. Students build a equal arm balance from simple materials to demonstrate that air has mass.

Using gumdrops and toothpicks, students conduct a large-group, interactive ozone depletion model. Students explore the dynamic and competing upper atmospheric roles of the protective ozone layer, the sun's UV radiation and harmful human-made CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons).

This is an interesting lesson about the concept of living things. Students will be introduced to a pretend boy named C.M. Beg. The initials of the boy will be a mnemonic device to help students understand the basic characteristics of living things. C stands for change. M stands for move. B stands for breath. E stands for eat. G stands for grow.

Students observe and discuss a simple balloon model of an electrostatic precipitator to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.

This article continues an examination of each of the seven essential principles of climate literacy on which the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured. Principle 2 covers the complex interactions among the components of the Earth system. The author discusses the scientific concepts underlying the interactions and expands the discussion with diagrams, photos, and online resources.

Students use a sponge and water model to explore the concept of relative humidity and create a percent scale.

This article aligns the concepts of Essential Principle 2 of the Climate Sciences to the K-5 content standards of the National Science Education Standards. The author also identifies common misconceptions about heat and the greenhouse gases effect and offers resources for assessing students' understanding of interactions among components of the Earth system. This article continues the examination of the climate sciences and climate literacy on which the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured.

This article identifies age-appropriate national science education content standards and curriculum connections for introducing complex concepts contained in Principle 7 of the Essential Principles of Climate Sciences. The principle describes consequences of climate changes on Earth systems and human lives. The content standards will help teachers determine appropriate topics for their students. A number of resources from the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle are highlighted for their connection to the science curriculum in the early grades. In addition, the article identifies common misconceptions about weather and the water cycle often held by students.

This is a unit on fish habitats. The activities include the following: looking at pictures of fish and their habitat, talking about what all animals need to live, how fish live, making a poster of a fish habitat, and finally visiting a lake.

Air is one of Earth's most precious resources, and we need to take care of it in order to preserve the environment and protect human health. To this end, students develop their understanding of visible air pollutants with an incomplete combustion demonstration, a "smog in a jar" demonstration, and by building simple particulate matter collectors.

This is a webquest acitivty. Students are given links to different websites to find information about weather fronts. The websites contain information in text, pictures, and interactive forms.

Students build and observe a simple aneroid barometer to learn about changes in barometric pressure and weather forecasting.

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 develop an understanding of air pressure by using candy or cookie wafers to model how it changes with altitude, by comparing its magnitude to gravitational force per unit area, and by observing its magnitude with an aluminum can crushing experiment.

Students develop their understanding of the effects of invisible air pollutants with a rubber band air test, a bean plant experiment and by exploring engineering roles related to air pollution. In an associated literacy activity, students develop visual literacy and write photograph captions. They learn how images are manipulated for a powerful effect and how a photograph can make the invisible (such as pollutants) visible. Note: You may want to set up the activities for Air Pollution unit, Lessons 2 and 3, simultaneously as they require extended data collection time and can share collection sites.

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.

In this lesson, students learn about air. Through a variety of hands-on experiences presented as stations in the classroom, students will discover properties of air, including that air has volume, mass, and pressure; that it is compressible; and that it expands when heated. They will also learn about the major molecular components of our atmosphere (nitrogen, oxygen, argon), the four layers of our atmosphere, and that air contains water vapor. Note: The videos referenced in the lesson narrative are no longer available online, but the station activities are not dependent on the content in the video.

Students observe and discuss a vacuum cleaner model of a baghouse to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.