This integrated outdoor-learning, research and reflection exercise gives students a first-hand familiarity with local native plants and their significance in local native societies.

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Make a harmonica out of popscicle sticks. Activity from Weekly STEM in a Bag. Colorado Americorp agents in Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer, and Weld Counties. Work supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service under Americorps grant number 18AFHCO0010008. Opinions or points of view expressed in this lesson are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of or a position that is endorsed by the Corporation or the Americorps program. This resource is also available in Spanish in the linked file.

Social distancing can be tough, and we are all in need of a little positivity! This week’s virtual Read & Seed will help us transform our neighborhood into that of something beautiful. We will read Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy, Theresa Howell, and Rafael López and create our own positivity posters with nature as our inspiration. We will also participate in a Movement/Music/Finger Play activity by singing The More We Get Together. This lesson is aimed at connecting young learners to their natural world and promote school readiness skills. This Read & Seed activity is presented by The Gardens on Spring Creek by the City of Fort Collins. https://youtu.be/qaKv_ozqklo

Social distancing can be tough, and we are all in need of a little positivity! This week’s virtual Read & Seed will help us transform our neighborhood into that of something beautiful. We will read Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy, Theresa Howell, and Rafael López and create our own positivity posters with nature as our inspiration. We will also participate in a Movement/Music/Finger Play activity by singing The More We Get Together. This lesson is aimed at connecting young learners to their natural world and promote school readiness skills. This Read & Seed activity is presented by The Gardens on Spring Creek by the City of Fort Collins. https://www.fcgov.com/gardens/files/read-seed-website-positivity-posters.pdf?1588101864

As densely populated urban areas continue to expand, human activity is removing much-needed greenspaces from our communities; in turn, we are also removing critical buffers that are needed to combat air and water pollution, leaving cities vulnerable to a variety of health issues and potential infrastructure damage. In August of 2017, the Greater Houston area experienced a catastrophic flooding event, with Hurricane Harvey being designated as the wettest tropical cyclone ever recorded in US history. With many areas receiving 40" or more of rain, the rising flood waters had nowhere to go in a city covered in concrete, a barrier to natural infiltration. This caused over $125 billion in damage, with flood waters inundating hundreds of thousands of homes and displacing more than 30,000 people. In 2018, Katy High School responded by restoring an acre of public campus property to native Texas Gulf Coast prairie. The prairie will ultimately serve as an outdoor classroom for students, a greenspace for community outreach, and also as a natural retention area for future flooding events. Urban greenspaces, like the KHS Tiger Prairie, are mini-ecosystems that can potentially mitigate billions of dollars in flood damages while conserving precious habitats for native species; these pocket prairies not only model of conservation best-practices, but they also provide multiple, quantifiable ecoservices to communities. The KHS Tiger prairie will serve as a model for this activity, allowing students the opportunity to calculate the quantifiable cost-savings of incorporating native landscapes in their communities. Students will analyze recent precipitation and infiltration data, make predictions on which locations in urban areas have the most potential for restoration, and reflect on the societal and economic barriers to current conservation efforts.

Water conservation teams will perform a school water audit to determine how much water the school uses (indoors and outdoors), what activities and behaviors contribute to water loss and waste, and what changes could be enacted to conserve water at their school.

In this service learning project, students will collaborate in teams and with community partners to:

Collect data from existing sources such as past water bills, campus census data, and school facility maps
Measure school water use (indoors/outdoor) and make "field" observations by performing the 7-Step School Water Audit
Analyze data, formulate problem statements, and make recommendations for action plans to improve water efficiency
Create an extended abstract or poster for the project
Present the project to an authentic audience of students, teachers, school administrators, water supply entities and other community partners
Make real-world changes to conserve water

This assignment pairs studies in environmental humanities with outdoor activity. Students complete a "field excursion" (gardening, hiking, environmental restoration) and reflect on sensory experiences involved in that activity to critique rationalist traditions/Cartesian legacies in their education more broadly.

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Haz un comedero para pájaros con un rollo de papel higiénico. Agentes de Colorado Americorp en los condados de Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer y Weld. Trabajo apoyado por la Corporación para el Servicio Nacional y Comunitario bajo el número de subvención 18AFHCO0010008 de Americorps. Las opiniones o puntos de vista expresados en esta lección pertenecen a los autores y no representan necesariamente la posición oficial o una posición respaldada por la Corporación o el programa Americorps.

Short Description: This is an inquiry investigation, geared toward student use of outdoor schoolyard sites. Its focus is to have students applying what they've learned about the scientific method and experimental design, gathering quantitative evidence to support hypotheses.

In this field lab students will go outside and observe a particular area of the schoolyard. Students will design investigations to complete outside and will use outdoor observations to provide evidence for our indoor activities.

This informational webpage provides a short explanation of how mineral salt interacts with snow and ice to "melt" them. It is provided by MPS Property Services.

Planting seeds can be hard work! They require a lot of care and a lot of patience, as we will learn from our story this week. During this virtual Read & Seed we will read The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson. Participate in a Movement/Music/Finger Play activity by singing a garden song, and create seed tape to plant and start your own garden. This lesson is aimed at connecting young learners to their natural world and promote school readiness skills. This Read & Seed activity is presented by The Gardens on Spring Creek by the City of Fort Collins. https://youtu.be/3ER8I--SRbU

Planting seeds can be hard work! They require a lot of care and a lot of patience, as we will learn from our story this week. During this virtual Read & Seed we will read The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson. Participate in a Movement/Music/Finger Play activity by singing a garden song, and create seed tape to plant and start your own garden. This lesson is aimed at connecting young learners to their natural world and promote school readiness skills. This Read & Seed activity is presented by The Gardens on Spring Creek by the City of Fort Collins. https://www.fcgov.com/gardens/files/read-seed-website-seed-tape.pdf?1590515650

Make a sun painting using sunscreen. Colorado Americorp agents in Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer, and Weld Counties. Work supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service under Americorps grant number 18AFHCO0010008. Opinions or points of view expressed in this lesson are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of or a position that is endorsed by the Corporation or the Americorps program. This resource is also available in Spanish in the linked file.

This series of ten lessons has been developed to teach students about local and global water issues. They are based on NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission. The activities are done largely outdoors and include scientific data collection and analysis and integrate technology. Many of the lessons involve data collected based on protocols from the GLOBE Program. Each lesson is designed to take one hour; the lessons build on each other, but can also be used independently. Each lesson topic includes a lesson plan, PowerPoint presentation, student capture sheet and capture sheet answer guide.

Project Description (Microsoft Word 14kB Jan26 10)
Water collection and usage in the Sustainable SW Japanese Garden

The Albuquerque Water Authority has several activities on their web site to help with making a personal water audit, selecting xeriscape plants, designing garden areas as well as forms for rebates. We used the ABQ Water Authority design format to calculate which plants to install. Students start with a personal water audit and then move to the design of the garden.
Personal water audit http://www.abcwua.org/Understanding_Your_Bill.aspx
Techniques to consevere water outdoors http://www.abcwua.org/Save_Water_Outdoors.aspx
Planning Xeriscape - students create their own personal garden and we transfer the concepts to the Japanese Garden. We are looking at Japanese design elements with a SW flare and thereby modeling what the internees did when they were limited to the surrounding rock, vegetation and water collection. http://www.abcwua.org/Xeriscaping.aspx

Calculating roof area using a Google satellite image

We use a measurable square on the pathway for the scale and then we calculate the square feet of the roof area. A transparency is used to overlay the image and calculate the water harvest.

Calculating the capacity of the 1500 gallon cistern in terms of water needed per plant

Students experiment with buckets to see ascertain the best collection site. The water is measured after rainfalls and compared to the weather data collected by the NOAA.

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In this field based activity students explore their new home in an effort to get acquainted with the community beyond the campus and to experience accessible recreation on a nationally recognized hiking trail.

During the nature-based outdoor recreation experience, students explore a variety of natural and cultural history topics.

(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.)

Make a bird feeder out of a toilet paper roll. Colorado Americorp agents in Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer, and Weld Counties. Work supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service under Americorps grant number 18AFHCO0010008. Opinions or points of view expressed in this lesson are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of or a position that is endorsed by the Corporation or the Americorps program. This resource is also available in Spanish in the linked file.

In this activity, students learn how engineers design faucets. Students will learn about water pressure by building a simple system to model faucets and test the relationship between pressure, area and force. This is a great outdoor activity on a warm day.

Unit 5 addresses the concept of Net Zero Water of buildings. Net Zero Water can be defined in different ways. For this module it means a building's water needs are supplied 100% from harvested rainwater or water that is recycled on site. Reducing indoor and outdoor water use is a key element. Reading and videos are assigned to aid students grasping the concept of Net Zero Water as applied to buildings. A spreadsheet tool from the U.S. Green Building Council is introduced and used to estimate indoor water demand for baseline and design (water conservation) scenarios. In addition, this unit links to Unit 4 by including an estimate for outdoor water demand. The central activity for the unit is an active learning team exercise to analyze indoor water use reduction for a case study building and evaluate Net Zero Water.

(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.)