Join Simon, Anita, Emily and the rest of Ms. Patel's class as they gain an understanding of how the Earth works as a system while preparing their end of the school year play.
In this interactive game adapted from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, build a food web that illustrates the flow of energy in an Antarctic ecosystem and the relationships between predators and prey.
The ASPIRE Lab is now one of the most innovative and interactive science education websites available on the Internet. You will find not only fun interactive labs, but well designed and produced curriculum content, created by teachers for teachers. The powerful combination of inquiry-based content, along with interactive, hands-on labs provides a powerful visualization tool for you and your students to use. Best of all, the ASPIRE Lab is free!
Experiment with a helium balloon, a hot air balloon, or a rigid sphere filled with different gases. Discover what makes some balloons float and others sink.
Why does a balloon stick to your sweater? Rub a balloon on a sweater, then let go of the balloon and it flies over and sticks to the sweater. View the charges in the sweater, balloons, and the wall.
This learning video uses a simple analog setup to explore why earthquakes are so unpredictable. The setup is simple enough that students should be able to assemble and operate it on their own with a teacher's supervision. The teaching approach used in this module is known as the 5E approach, which stands for Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation. Over the course of this lesson, the basic mechanisms that give rise to the behavior of the simple analog system are explained, and further elaboration helps the students to apply their understanding of the analog system to complex fault systems that cause earthquakes
This video lesson aims to motivate students about chemistry and to raise their awareness about how chemistry helps in solving certain environmental problems. In this lesson, the air pollution problem created by cars and other vehicles is presented. The lesson will highlight causes of this problem, harmful products from it and possible solutions. There will also be discussion of ways to convert the pollutants produced by burning oil in vehicles into more friendly products.
The Daisy World model is intended to illustrate a mechanism through which biota might optimize their environment by means of negative feedback. The model offers a very simplified approach to a feedback system and can provide an introductory lesson in how models work. The aim of the model is to implement and test a mathematical model describing possible influence of biota on an abiotic (climatic) system using GAWK and GNUPLOT. The model tests the hypothesis that biota can influence the planetary environment. This site contains the online model of Daisy World for use in introductory courses as well as an assignment based on the model.
Investigate ocean acidification through five activities at different levels to learn about ocean acidification using real data. Curriculum Guide available on website.The NOAA Ocean Data Education (NODE) Project is developing curriculum for grades 6-8 designed to help teachers and students use real scientific data to explore dynamic Earth processes and understand the impact of environmental events on a regional or global scale.
Follow Simon, Anita and Dennis as they join Hannah, a local scientist, in making new discoveries at Willow Creek.
How many calories are in your favorite foods? How much exercise would you have to do to burn off these calories? What is the relationship between calories and weight? Explore these issues by choosing diet and exercise and keeping an eye on your weight.
Play hockey with electric charges. Place charges on the ice, then hit start to try to get the puck in the goal. View the electric field. Trace the puck's motion. Make the game harder by placing walls in front of the goal. This is a clone of the popular simulation of the same name marketed by Physics Academic Software and written by Prof. Ruth Chabay of the Dept of Physics at North Carolina State University.
In this game, learners explore the different sizes of things in the world. In this Twister-like game, learners must place a hand or foot on a circle of the right scale - macro, micro, or nano. This activity is a fun way for learners to investigate the sizes of different objects.
Pump gas molecules to a box and see what happens as you change the volume, add or remove heat, change gravity, and more. Measure the temperature and pressure, and discover how the properties of the gas vary in relation to each other.
Pump gas molecules to a box and see what happens as you change the volume, add or remove heat, change gravity, and more. Measure the temperature and pressure, and discover how the properties of the gas vary in relation to each other.
Move the sun, earth, moon and space station to see how it affects their gravitational forces and orbital paths. Visualize the sizes and distances between different heavenly bodies, and turn off gravity to see what would happen without it!
In this activity, learners use their hands as tools for indirect measurement. Learners explore how to use ratios to calculate the approximate height of something that can't be measured directly by first measuring something that can be directly measured. This activity can also be used to explain how scientists use indirect measurement to determine distances between things in the universe that are too far away, too large or too small to measure directly (i.e. diameter of the moon or number of bacteria in a volume of liquid).
This task can be used as a quick assessment to see if students can make sense of a graph in the context of a real world situation. Students also have to pay attention to the scale on the vertical axis to find the correct match.
Short exercise designed to give students practice in determining what information is needed to answer a question, estimating an answer, and calculating an answer (including unit conversions and scientific notation). Emphasizes the relevance of large numbers to society (population, debt, etc).
In this game, learners try to find nano-related objects on a game board. Learners investigate the different ways nano is in the world around us.