In this activity, students will work in collaborative groups to develop an advertisement for a political candidate in support of one side of an issue - should we build low-cost housing on part of the land presently occupied by an estuary? Each group will decide which side they want to support - either for or against building the housing - and write an ad that will be run in a local paper, or that will be viewed on local TV, to support their argument.

Students will explore how human population growth, air pollution, agriculture, mining, water use, and other human activities have impacted the environment and the mark they will leave in the fossil record.

In this lesson, students discover the impact that flooding has on people's lives, and how science and technology can mitigate its effects and help find potential solutions. Working in teams, students design and build a model of a flood-proof home for their family on the fictitious isalnd of Watu. They will consider how flooding affects the whole community and work out where the best place for a home would be.

In this lesson, students take on the role of a quality analyst from a small independent quality control firm that checks results to ensure that they meet the requirements of the UK Environment Agency. The test involves adding an acidic solution of iron(III) chloride to the water sample and measuring the concentration of thiocyanate photometrically by measuring the absorbance due to the iron(III) thiocyanate complex.

Students understand the impact of higher tides based on sea level rise on coastal areas, develop a plan to mitigate the impact of higher tides, and discuss how students can apply their plans to coastal communities.

In this tutorial students will learn about the effects of human activity on the erosion of Earth’s surface.

Each winter, massive waves attract surfers and visitors to the North Shore of O‘ahu in Hawai‘i. Some years, the waves cause severe erosion, and continuing sea level rise will accelerate this issue. Residents and the state are taking steps to preserve homes and beaches.

The mining of our country’s natural resources is not just a simple matter of finding the desired ore and digging it up.  Important economic and environmental considerations are involved in any mining venture. These include property costs, mining equipment costs, operational costs, and land reclamation costs. Fines for violations of environmental regulations may also be incurred. If a mining corporation is to make a profit, the value of the recovered ore must be greater than the sum of all of its mining costs plus any environmental fines. In this lab you will create a mining corporation and attempt to run a cookie mining operation that is both profitable and environmentally sound.  

The mining of our country’s natural resources is not just a simple matter of finding the desired ore and digging it up. Important economic and environmental considerations are involved in any mining venture. These include property costs, mining equipment costs, operational costs, and land reclamation costs. Fines for violations of environmental regulations may also be incurred. If a mining corporation is to make a profit, the value of the recovered ore must be greater than the sum of all of its mining costs plus any environmental fines. In this lab you will create a mining corporation and attempt to run a cookie mining operation that is both profitable and environmentally sound.

Students will simulate the action of and in some cases the consequences of mining for minerals.

Explore water pollution and its impact on ocean life in aquatic dead zones.

GeoInquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advanced web mapping technology. Each 15-minute activity in a collection is intended to be presented by the instructor from a single computer/projector classroom arrangement. No installation, fees, or logins are necessary to use these materials and software.

Explore water pollution and its impact on ocean life in aquatic dead zones.

Students will collect data through a simulation game on deforestation and be able to describe how humans have impacted a simulated forest. Students will also learn about subsistence farming and its role in rain forest (primary) forest deforestation.

This unit looks at the issues surrounding sustainable transportation in an urban prairie center. Given an imaginary plot of empty or reclaimable land in their city, students are challenged to plan a sustainable transport friendly community that encourages active transport and high quality of life. To carry out the task students need to research the issues around urban sustainable transportation and apply them to their own community.

In this lesson, students will investigate how land is used for mining. Students will mine for "ore" and observe damage to the surrounding land. Students will then have the opportunity to reclaim the land by filling in the holes and they will observe how the land has changed.

Students will explain how satellite imagery can be used to monitor land use change and construct a change table to summarize land cover information. They will then use a change table to make inferences about land use changes in a coastal region.

Students can investigate how people and nature are changing the landscape over time. The Landsat series of Earth-observing satellites has acquired data for monitoring the planet's landmasses since 1972. Earthshots shows how satellite data are used to track changes in the surface of the Earth. Each Earthshots page features a different location from around the world and explains the changes that the satellite images reveal.

This blog is designed for North Carolina's K-12 teachers and students who are interested in the topic of energy and alternative energy (nuclear and renewables). This blog is maintained by Dana Haine, K-12 Science Education Manager for UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute for the Environment, with funding provided by Progress Energy.

In this lesson, students will learn about beach processes and complex beach systems. By participating in a role-playing activity, students will also learn that human efforts to stabilize an unstable environment can lead to complex problems. Students will conduct research to prepare materials for their part of the role-playing activity.

The activities in this guide will help students understand variations in environmental parameters by examining connections among different phenomena measured on local, regional, and global scales.