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In this lab students will work with Google Earth to explore temperature patterns, biome types, and climatographs from selected cities around the world. As they work through the links and images in this activity, students can explore how climate, a long-term average of weather patterns, shapes the life of a region. This is lab 4 of a series of 7 labs on climate and the biosphere. It is estimated t ...

CarbonTracker is a CO2 measurement and modeling system developed by NOAA to keep track of sources (emissions to the atmosphere) and sinks (removal from the atmosphere) of carbon dioxide around the world. CarbonTracker uses atmospheric CO2 observations from a host of collaborators and simulated atmospheric transport to estimate these surface fluxes of CO2. The current release of CarbonTracker, pro ...

This BBC Earth 3.5 minute video may be used as a phenomenon to initiate student three-dimensional thinking about the role of group behavior on both individual and species survival. The video shows cooperative group feeding behavior in several oceanic predators - gannets, dolphins, Bryde’s whales, and sharks - as well as the group avoidance behavior of the target prey - a school of sardines. ...

This is a simple to use Java based simulation from PhET, University of Boulder Colorado. In this simulation the learner can manipulate several variables related to the crust and then run experiments to produce data consistent with data from actual phenomena. This resource can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom. The interactive simulation offers the user the ability to manipulate the typ ...

This article in NSTA’s November 2016 issue of The Science Teacher describes a set of activities that engage students in three-dimensional learning by using diatom bioassessments to assess water quality and biodiversity in a variety of local aquatic ecosystems. Student work is guided by the essential question, “How does living in the Anthropocene affect the integrity of aquatic ecosyste ...

The Ocean-Carbon Connection, starting on page 17 of the link, is level two of five levels contained in the Understanding Ocean Acidification curriculum module developed for the NOAA Ocean Data Education (NODE) Project. In this lesson, students examine graphs and maps to identify changes in pH, sea surface temperatures (SST), and dissolved CO2 levels in the Caribbean. Students then correlate chang ...

This two-minute video provides brief background on the use of zebrafish as a model in studying animal development, before showing a time-lapse sequence of a fertilized zebrafish egg developing into a larva. The video includes some annotations that help orient the viewer during the time-lapse sequence. Teachers might want to mute the narration beginning at 0:42 min to avoid giving students too mu ...