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Students will work in small groups to review information about an invasive species in Florida and learn to recognize scientifically reliable sources. Groups will teach their classmates about the assigned species and discuss some of the impacts that species has on the biodiversity of the local ecosystem where they have been introduced.

Students will explore the role of the state government, specifically the Florida Wildlife Commission and the Florida Department of Agriculture, in preserving the biodiversity of Florida. Students will relate the creation of invasive species laws to the impacts government can have on the environment and daily lives of citizens.

Type: Lesson Plan

The changing climate is an important topic for both scientific analysis and worldly knowledge. This lesson uses data collected by the National Snow and Ice Data Center to create and use mathematical models as a predictive tool and do critical analysis of sea ice loss.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn about the importance of biodiversity research collections (specifically, herbaria), the types of data that their specimens hold, the process of digital data creation about the specimens, and the online publishers of that digital data. Students will act as citizen scientists and transcribe labels of plant specimens then explore the research value of the data that they create.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this activity students will conduct research then test the effects of adding products to soil. Students will learn about soil pH, what factors affect the pH of soil and how important it is to the growth of plants. Students will learn to use reputable resources to support their findings. Students will be expected to write a detailed lab report that thoroughly explores the concept while integrating the data from their investigation.

Type: Lesson Plan

Cleaning Up Your Act Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) provides students with a real world engineering problem in which they must work as a team to design a procedure to select the best material for cleaning up an oil spill. The main focus of this MEA is to recognize the consequences of a catastrophic event, and understand the environmental and economical impact based on data analysis. Students will conduct individual and team investigations in order to arrive at a scientifically sound solution to the problem.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn how to identify different sources of scientific claims and to evaluate their reliability in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Listen as Dr. Austin Mast describes how and why an herbarium collects, maintains, and distributes plant samples for scientific research.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Listen closely as Dr. Austin Mast explains how students can help scientists by transcribing data from real herbarium plant samples. 

Related Site: 

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Dr. Jeff Holmes from the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology discusses the Encyclopedia of Life as a teaching resource and as an example of reliable information.

This video was created in collaboration with the Okaloosa County SCIENCE Partnership including the Smithsonian Institution and Harvard University.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

This teacher has an idea about how to bring higher-level reading skills to science class.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Every day, we are bombarded by attention grabbing headlines that promise miracle cures to all of our ailments -- often backed up by a "scientific study." But what are these studies, and how do we know if they are reliable? David H. Schwartz dissects two types of studies that scientists use, illuminating why you should always approach the claims with a critical eye.

Type: Tutorial

In this National Science Foundation video and reading selection lab ecologist Janis Dickinson explains how she depends on citizen scientists to help her track the effects of disease, land-use change and environmental contaminants on the nesting success of birds.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation