This detailed chemistry lesson from the U.S. Department of Energy focuses on transforming vegetable oil into biodiesel through a process of transesterification. The process described offers a good model for many chemical reaction processes that are used to produce a viable product.

In this lab activity students generate their own biomass gases by heating wood pellets or wood splints in a test tube. They collect the resulting gases and use the gas to roast a marshmallow. Students also evaluate which biomass fuel is the best by their own criteria or by examining the volume of gas produced by each type of fuel.

Students examine the structure and function of the human eye, learning some amazing features about our eyes, which provide us with sight and an understanding of our surroundings. Students also learn about some common eye problems and the biomedical devices and medical procedures that resolve or help to lessen the effects of these vision deficiencies, including vision correction surgery.

Students use ultrasonic sensors and LEGO© MINDSTORMS© NXT robots to emulate how bats use echolocation to detect obstacles. They measure the robot's reaction times as it senses objects at two distances and with different sensor threshold values, and again after making adjustments to optimize its effectiveness. Like engineers, they gather and graph data to analyze a given design (from the tutorial) and make modifications to the sensor placement and/or threshold values in order to improve the robot's performance (iterative design). Students see how problem solving with biomimicry design is directly related to understanding and making observations of nature.

Students learn about biomimicry and how engineers often imitate nature in the design of innovative new products. They demonstrate their knowledge of biomimicry by practicing brainstorming and designing a new product based on what they know about animals and nature.

This is a long-term inquiry activity in which students investigate locations they believe harbor cellulose-digesting microbes, collect samples, isolate them on selective media, and screen them for cellulase activity. These novel microbes may be useful for the production of cellulosic ethanol. In the process they learn about plating techniques, serial dilutions, symbiotic relationships and enzyme specificity. Two methods are provided, one focusing on isolation of pure microbial strains, the other focusing on finding symbiotic communities of microbes. The companion activity is here: https://www.glbrc.org/outreach/educational-materials/bioprospecting-cellulose-degrading-microbes-filter-paper-assay

A weekly bioregion homework assignment exploring for the student local landscape changes. What were the past natural conditions and native uses to todays uses, as well as projected changes in the coming decades.

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In this laboratory exercise students create a fence diagram cross section of the Atlantic Coastal Plain by correlating a sequence of well logs recorded along a NW -- SE transect through coastal North Carolina. The well logs in this exercise are based on actual well logs published by the United States Geological Survey, providing a realistic cross section of the Atlantic Coastal Plain when the exercise is completed. Students must make intelligent decisions as to how best to draw lithostratigraphic correlations between well logs, guided by information provided by biostratigraphic correlations. After completing this lab, students should have a better understanding of how strata are deposited in time and space under the control of transgressions and regressions, how geologists correlate strata, and they should be able to recognize disconformities and angular unconformities in cross sections.

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Students use the evolutionary distribution of oceanic phytoplankton fossils to date the age of pelagic and hemipelagic sedimentary rocks. They correlate this section to another as an exercise in oil prospecting.

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This lesson begins with a demonstration prompting students to consider how current generates a magnetic field and the direction of the field that is generated. Through formal lecture, students learn Biot-Savart's law in order to calculate, most simply, the magnetic field produced in the center of a circular current carrying loop. For applications, students find it is necessary to integrate the field produced over all small segments in an actual current carrying wire.

Students are given data for three unidentified hypothetical environments and asked to determine the relative effects of mixed layer thickness, sediment accumulation rate, and bioturbation rate based on a simple diffusion-based model of bioturbation.
Students are asked to identify the three unknown environments based on the data.
Students are then asked questions regarding the effects of the model on temporal resolution and porewater chemistry and the resulting fossil assemblages.

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The 50-minute group-based activity for hundreds of students starts by constructing bio-zones for a given set of fossil ranges. Results are reviewed using a sequence of clicker questions to discuss the optimal biostratigraphic decisions, the necessary types of thinking, and how to articulate a concise yet complete textual description of corresponding biozones.

A set of stratigraphic logs is then used to interpret changes in depositional environment across space and time. Students also decide (and justify decisions) on the optimal choice of fossils for use when interpreting variations in depositional environment. The final result is an interpreted geologic section based on stratigraphic and biostratigraphic data.

This interpretive exercise is only three weeks into a first course on Earth and life through time, so guidance is provided using carefully designed question sequences posed using "clicker" (personal response system) and/or for individual or whole class discussion.

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The purpose of this resource is to quantitatively evaluate the accuracy of a classification system. Students sort birds into three possible classes based on each bird's beak: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Students compare their answers with a given set of validation data.

This activity is an introduction to the study of birds. Students will gain observation and classification skills.

By paying attention to the sounds and behaviors of birds, students are introduced to a whole new way to experience and observe what’s happening in their surroundings, both during their field experience and back home. In this Focused Exploration activity, students pay attention to the birds around them. After listening as a group, students imitate calls and notice differences between them. Students think about and discuss the different messages birds might communicate, then they individually watch and listen to birds from a Sit Spot. When the group gathers again, students compare their observations and make a large map of the bird vocalizations and behaviors they observed.

Stare at one color—but see another. You see color when receptor cells (called cones) in your eye’s retina are stimulated by light. There are three types of cones, and each is sensitive to a particular color range. If one or more of the three types of cones adapts to a stimulus because of long exposure, it responds less strongly than it normally would.

This task asks students to glean contextual information about bird eggs from a collection of measurements of said eggs organized in a scatter plot. In particular, students are asked to identify a correlation and use it to make interpolative predictions, and reason about the properties of specific eggs via the graphical presentation of the data.

In this activity, students construct "flying birds" (pollution collectors) from paper and wire hangers. Students hang up their birds to see how they react to air pollution, and compare and make observations about the differences in the birds.