Students have been examining Earth as a system of interacting parts, initially from the local perspective but more recently from the regional and global perspectives. In order to fully understand the Earth as a system and how its components interact with each other, students need to consider change over time. On relatively short times scales, these changes are related to the fact that the solar energy that drives the Earth system passes through an atmosphere that varies across space and time before reaching a spinning sphere. Across longer seasonal and annual time scales, these changes are more specifically related to the differential heating that results from the tilt of Earth's axis and Earth's orbit around the sun. At this longer-term global scale, it may be easier to see the repeating patterns of change across space and time and to infer how changes in one sphere may be linked to changes in others.

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Aquaculture is the most rapidly growing food-production industry in the world. In Part A of this investigation, students examine and analyze U.S. and global aquaculture data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Fisheries and Aquaculture database. In Part B, students examine global trends in aquaculture production and learn about aquaculture methods and their associated environmental impacts. In Part C, students use Google Earth to analyze before and after satellite images of the Pacific coast of Honduras to illustrate how aquaculture is altering coastlines.

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When populations live in areas where natural resources are scarce, conserving them becomes critical for survival. The case study presented in this lesson introduces students to a real drought that has been developing in the Colorado River basin for many years. The Colorado River is the major source of water for people in the driest part of the United States. More than 30 million people in 7 states depend on this river as the primary source of their water.
In this lesson, students discover how changes in climate over the Colorado watershed are reducing the amount of fresh water available in the river. They also see how the population of the region that uses this water has grown, resulting in increasing demands on a dwindling resource.

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Students examine interactions and feedback between the cryosphere and atmosphere. In the first part of this investigation, students do a hands-on activity to explore albedo and how sea ice helps regulate global temperatures.

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Students graph the relationship between air pressure and wind speed in 2005's Hurricane Katrina and for the entire 2005 hurricane season. From their analyses, they come up with an estimate of the minimum air pressure that is likely to result in hurricane-force winds of 65 knots or higher.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Students have been examining Earth as a system of interacting parts, initially from the local perspective but more recently from the regional and global perspectives. In order to fully understand the Earth as a system and how its components interact with each other, students need to consider change over time. On relatively short times scales, these changes are related to the fact that the solar energy that drives the Earth system passes through an atmosphere that varies across space and time before reaching a spinning sphere. Across longer seasonal and annual time scales, these changes are more specifically related to the differential heating that results from the tilt of Earth's axis and Earth's orbit around the sun. At this longer-term global scale, it may be easier to see the repeating patterns of change across space and time and to infer how changes in one sphere may be linked to changes in others.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This activity allows student to investigate how hurricanes transfer heat by conducting hands-on experiments.

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In this lab, students apply the concepts of earlier lessons to their own community. They begin by exploring economic, environmental, and social impacts of drought. Students then prepare for and stage a mock community meeting to draw up plans to face an upcoming drought.

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Human-induced nutrient loading of the world's oceans has been linked to increased and prolonged algae blooms, sometimes with potentially deadly consequences. In this investigation, students will create their own algal blooms, analyze satellite images of chlorophyll concentrations in the Sea of Cort��s, and learn about two alarming consequences of excessive algae growth-—dead zones and harmful algae blooms (HABs).

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In this activity students explore how to reduce vulnerability to drought risk through mitigation strategies. Students investigate one or more of four technology-based mitigation strategies by reading articles or viewing short podcasts and completing hands-on activities. Students make a presentation or poster to communicate their findings to the class.

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Students explore issues related to the rapid intensification of hurricanes. They become familiar with the concepts of heat energy and the specific heat of water and interact with animations of sea surface temperature images to identify the Gulf Stream and the Loop Current. Students use NOAA View and Google Earth, free data-image tools, to explore visualizations of heat content in the Gulf of Mexico just before Hurricane Katrina. The examine a plotted path of Katrina as an overlay on these visualizations and observe changes in the heat content of Gulf waters as the hurricane passed over it.

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Students search for images and video that illustrate the dangers that hurricanes pose to property and life. They consult Morbidity and Mortality Reports to find the common causes of death attributed to hurricanes and to discover the challenges to counting deaths attributed to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Students explore hazards from storm surge, high winds, and inland floding and outline a plan that would prepare them to survive a hurricane.

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Outcome is the hands-on time with the various fossil specimens which will help them be able to identify similar fossils in the future.

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"Earth's Energy Budget and the Greenhouse Effect" is a lab activity in which students use computers and scientific applications software to access, display, describe, analyze, and interpret global, climate-related data sets related to the earth's energy budget and the greenhouse effect.

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Students digitize the path of the Green River from historical imagery, and calculate sinuosity using a Python script. Students then display the changes on a map. Students are introduced to the concept of computer scripting.

This lab introduces students and other interested users to the Neotoma Paleoecology Database and Neotoma Explorer. Neotoma DB is a public-access and community-supported repository of paleoecological data, mostly from the late Quaternary. These data are widely used by scientists to study species responses to past climate change.

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This is an exercise developed for use at the California Academy of Sciences by an undergraduate-level class which explores paleontology or the history of life.
Students are asked to explore the California Academy of Sciences, and explain how their collections are organized and why such collections are important.
Students are then asked to apply critical thinking skills and their knowledge of the scientific method to the exhibition on dinosaurs.

outcomes are that the students learn about silicification, pyritization, carbonization, calicification, internal, external, and composite molds. They also learn the difference between stromatolites and thrombolites.

Students extract streams and watersheds from a DEM for the island of Hawai'i. They then look to seeif there is a correlation between precipitation and the way a stream network develops on a mountain. Students also investigate if this is related to vegetation, soil type, and slope.

Students use a Python script to download position, size and foretasted position and size of hurricanes into a spreadsheet from NOAA hurricane forecasts. They then display the actual and foretasted hurricane positions in ArcMap. Finally students look at which counties in the United States have had the highest amount of hurricane activity. Students display their work in a multi-part map, or a series of maps.