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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

The students will solve a mystery using laboratory tests for different types of macromolecules. They will use argumentation to justify and communicate their claim. They will construct explanations and communicate with one another to determine which macromolecule would be best to eat in different scenarios. Students will be able to identify the structure and functions of the four main types of macromolecules. The students will use laboratory testing to determine the identity of an unknown. They will fill in a chart about the structures, functions, and examples for each macromolecule type and then they will practice their knowledge by answering short response questions relating the macromolecules to the real world. Finally, they will review using a whole-class cooperative activity and take a quiz about the structures and functions of macromolecules.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article reports new findings on bird migration patterns. Recent research points to migratory birds conducting a "risk assessment" based on factors like weather and their own amount of body fat. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. Numerous options to extend the lesson are also included.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this week-long, open-ended activity, students will observe their local environment, devise and pose a testable research question, conduct observations using sensors, and use mathematics skills for quantitative analysis and plotting. To communicate results, students will summarize their findings on a custom poster that explains their work.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that describes a recent experiment that helps to prove that larger brain size could indicate higher intelligence within carnivorous mammals. The research was conducted at nine U.S. zoos and included 140 animals from 39 mammalian carnivore species. The lesson plan includes text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, sample answers, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson plan uses an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes a research project undertaken by Tulane University students, who collected rodents from neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Katrina. The text describes how a mathematical model can be used to simulate how environmental changes affect the populations of rodents that carry pathogens harmful to human health. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

Using the Predict, Observe, and Explain model, students will be able to identify the basic function of cellular respiration. Students will predict what is needed for yeast fermentation, why they do it and what gas is being released. With a teacher led debrief, students will then decide what factors allow fermentation to occur and finally explain why it's happening.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will observe, explore, and create a story about the main structures of the female/male reproductive systems, describing how these systems interact during the process of fertilization to a create human being.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a lab activity resource to accompany learning of photosynthesis and the Calvin cycle. Students are able to measure change in water conditions and gaseous production associated with autotrophs.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will examine how changes in an ecosystem result from environmental factors specifically demonstrating the consequences of climate change on sea turtles. The lesson is in four parts: 1) a fact finding/research component; 2) a group discussion and student presentation; 3) a multi-media component; and 4) a laboratory activity.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will construct a two-way table based on data given. They will interpret the data to find if there is a correlation between the two variables from the same subject. As the lesson progresses, students will create their own testable questions that they will collect data on using the survey method. Students will show their mastery of this math concept with the presentation of the data in a two-way table and interpretation of the data to draw inferences.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this exploration, students will answer the following essential questions:

1. How does the length of a pendulum impact how long it takes to swing back and forth?
2. How does the amount of mass hanging from a pendulum impact the amount of time to swing back and forth?
3. How can we calculate the value of acceleration due to gravity (g) from the behavior of a moving pendulum (optional activity for math reinforcement)?

Type: Lesson Plan

Students use real world examples of sampling frog and salamander populations to explore the different characteristics of a population and the process of observation and inference. The lesson includes individual and group activities.

Type: Lesson Plan

Science is ever-changing. Students have the opportunity to see how classroom topics relate to current events and research from around the world. Students will decipher claims and support given by author to evaluate the purpose of the article.

Type: Lesson Plan

This engaging activity is a fun game requiring a teacher to team up with a student and provide insider information before the activity begins. The team will cleverly involve the rest of the class in a guessing game where students must apply logic and their understanding of variables to devise questions aimed at figuring out the trick, which allows the chosen student and the teacher to always know what the other is thinking! The concept of changing one variable at a time is critical to making progress in this game of reasoning and observation.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students play a dice game to explore the differences between direct and indirect evidence. Student pairs roll dice and record the numbers rolled as a series of colors instead of numbers. Other pairs of students try to crack the color code to figure out the sequence of numbers rolled. In this way, students gain an understanding of how indirect evidence of climate change can be interpreted. In conclusion, the class discusses the various records made by humans and indirect evidence found in nature that can be studied to understand how climate has varied through time.

Key Concepts

• Scientists collect data from many sources to identify, understand, and interpret past changes in Earth's climate.
• Natural records of climate change, such as tree rings, ice cores, pollen and ocean sediments offer indirect evidence of climate change. They require knowledge of how the natural recorder works.
• Records made by humans , such as artwork, harvest records, and accounts of changing seasons, are more direct, but can be incomplete.

Type: Lesson Plan

Each team has an envelope containing a series of bank checks. A few are removed at a time, and the team attempts to construct a plausible scenario which involves those checks. With each subsequent removal of checks, appropriate revision of the scenario is done. Final scenarios are compared by the class. Class discussion is designed to show how human values and biases influence observation and interpretation, even in science. This is one of the few nature-of-science lessons which have a biological connection.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson introduces the concept of node graphs for the purpose of visualizing social networks.

The lesson is presented with an introductory physical activity where students create a living graph. Students, building on their existing knowledge regarding common graph types, learn how node graphs can be used to visualize data from social networks.

Students will then participate in a simulated contagious infection event and will accurately record data about the transmission of the disease. These data will be used to construct a single computer file to be used to create a single node graph for describing the network. Students will then be responsible for understanding how to interpret the resulting network graph in the context of the activity.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn how to identify explicit evidence and understand implicit meaning in a text and demonstrate how and why scientific inferences are drawn from scientific observation and be able to identify examples in biology.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Humans aren't the only ones who get their fingerprints taken. Learn how this scientist is like a crime scene investigator using oil "fingerprints" to explain the orgins of spilled oil.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

This ecologist from the Coastal Plains Institute discusses sampling techniques that are used to gather data to make statistical inferences about amphibian populations in the wetlands of the Apalachicola National Forest.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Complex problems require complex plans and training. Get in shape to get things done.

Related Resources:
KROS Pacific Ocean Kayak Journey: GPS Data Set[.XLSX]
KROS Pacific Ocean Kayak Journey: Path Visualization for Google Earth[.KML]

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Just about anything can be data, including how you interact with social media apps!

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

In this video, science teacher Susan Cullum describes the impact of field research experiences on classroom teaching practices.

This research is made possible by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI/C-IMAGE II).
This research is made possible by a grant from the NOAA Gulf of Mexico BWET program.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Avast, me hearties! You ready to learn about observation skills?

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Bird migration patterns have shown to be much more complex than once thought. Birds change their patterns based on a variety of factors, recent research indicates. The article refers to this as risk assessment; it includes the availability of food, strength, and even weather. The research was completed using three different species of songbird. Researchers are hoping that understanding of these patterns will help us in our conservation efforts.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes an experiment that helps to confirm that larger brain size could indicate higher intelligence within carnivorous mammals. The experiment involved 140 animals and each was given the same task of retrieving food from a locked box within 30 minutes. The results of the test show that having a larger brain really does improve an animal’s ability to solve a problem it has never encountered before.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article describes how a mathematical model can be used to simulate how environmental changes affect populations of pathogen-carrying rodents. A "capture" program undertaken by researchers at Tulane University allowed them to capture rats in post-Katrina neighborhoods in order to determine how rats migrate after natural or man-made disasters.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The pigments in the feathers of bird specimens have been traditionally hard to analyze because it required destroying the feathers. Now, scientists have come up with a new, non-destructive way to explore the complex chemistry of bird feather pigments, using lasers and Raman spectroscopy.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Researchers have created models that can be used to understand previously unexplained properties of the Earth's core. Previously, we have not been able to explain the behavior of seismic waves traveling through the core. However, a new model suggests that the iron in the core greatly weakens before melting, which slows the waves down.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In 1974 a group of Chinese farmers digging a well came across a great discovery: the Terracotta Army from the tomb of the first emperor of China. Since the discovery, archaeologists have been researching many aspects of the artifacts. Recently, with the use of chemistry, they have been able to determine many details of the weapons of the Terracotta Army, including their chemical composition and production techniques.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Rain and runoff carry pollutants from human activity to the sea in places like Tacoma, Washington. The city has devised a scientific process for identifying sources and pathways of pollution and is making headway in reducing pollutant buildup and damage. By utilizing forensic methods to find the source of pollution and fining polluters, Tacoma is winning the war.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the Mpemba Effect - the odd phenomenon that causes hot water to freeze faster than cold water. The author discovers how a high school student brought the Mpemba Effect to the attention of a physicists and explores potential hypotheses for the cause of the phenomenon. The author goes on to discuss some experiments that have sought to explain the Mpemba Effect, but none have done so conclusively.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. A new study indicates that the flying patterns of hunting albatrosses may resemble mathematical designs called fractals. This article describes the basics of fractals and why scientists think the albatross may hunt in such patterns. As it turns out, many animals may use math to find food!

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article focuses on the technology used by NASA for its most recent research being conducted on hurricanes. It describes the technology used as well as the data that is collected. It is an excellent article for explaining how scientists "know what they know" about weather.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists have been making breakthroughs in immunotherapy: the use of infectious pathogens as a method for treating cancer. The infections heighten the response of the immune system and eradicate the cancer in the process.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text explains how some bees living in an urban environment have started to build their nests out of human-made materials such as plastics. Furthermore, the bees seem to prefer the materials to plants! Scientists theorize that these nests may actually prove to be safer for the bees, as they are stronger and protect against parasites.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article introduces extreme rainfall as an effect of climate change that is both measurable and personal - as it occurred in our own back yard. The article discusses the storm in Pensacola before heading into information about climate change.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article is about how scientists sought to understand why some sloths descend from trees, risking their lives, to defecate on the ground. Their research results suggest that the behavior is to increase the benefit gained from the sloth's mutualists: moths and algae.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses the discovery of "Skull 5" and the traits that have led scientists to the conclusion that early Homo was a more diverse genus than realized before.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Investigators give their final conclusion of what caused an F-16 crash after making scientific observations.

Type: Text Resource

This resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists have discovered that when they disrupt waking and sleeping times in mice, their immune systems responded in a harmful way causing disease, asthma, allergies, and maybe even immune disorders.

Type: Text Resource

The article explains how some famous scientific discoveries that happened "by accident" more accurately resulted from scientific habits of mind, which allowed researchers to take full advantage of these serendipitous moments.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes an experiment that was done by scientists to show how corals are being destroyed by a certain type of seaweed and how goby fish rescue the coral.

Type: Text Resource

The insight, innovation, and persistence of James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins led to a detailed understanding of the structure of DNA, the stuff that genes are made of. This discovery brought together information from many disciplines and many researchers to answer one of the most fundamental questions in life science: How do living things pass on traits to their offspring?

Type: Text Resource

With an often unexpected outcome from a simple experiment, students can discover the factors that cause and influence thermohaline circulation in our oceans. In two 45-minute class periods, students complete activities where they observe the melting of ice cubes in saltwater and freshwater, using basic materials: clear plastic cups, ice cubes, water, salt, food coloring, and thermometers. There are no prerequisites for this lesson but it is helpful if students are familiar with the concepts of density and buoyancy as well as the salinity of seawater. It is also helpful if students understand that dissolving salt in water will lower the freezing point of water. There are additional follow up investigations that help students appreciate and understand the importance of the ocean's influence on Earth's climate.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

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

The split brain experiments revealed that the right and the left hemisphere in the brain are good at different things. For instance, the right hemisphere is good at space perception tasks and music while the left is good at verbal and analytic tasks. This game guides students through some examples of the split-brain phenomenon and how the differences are understood.

Type: Virtual Manipulative