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In this interactive lesson, students will understand the concept of carbon footprint and its role in climate change. Students learn how to measure their carbon footprint using an online carbon footprint calculator. This tool allows them to assess the environmental impact of their daily activities. Students will explore some effective strategies and actions aimed at reducing their carbon footprint. They will be able to recognize the responsibilities of citizens and the government to help create a greener future.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will continue their consideration of the legal water dispute between Florida and Georgia and research the issues involved to create a point-counterpoint argument on whether the actions of humans in Georgia affect the aquatic ecosystems in Florida. They will apply their understanding of factors that affect aquatic ecosystems as well as the impact that humans can have on the environment in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be introduced to the legal water dispute between Florida and Georgia. They will research the issues involved to explore whether/how the actions of humans in Georgia affect the aquatic ecosystems in Florida. Students will discover how disputes like this one between states are addressed in the United States during this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will create posters to advocate for a solution to an environmental impact and will vote for which issue the class thinks should be pursued in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will independently research human environmental impacts and think of ways they can use civic duties from last class to persuade the class to support their solutions in this integrated lesson.   

Type: Lesson Plan

The “To Sod or Not To Sod” MEA provides students with an environmental dilemma in which they must work as a team to develop a procedure to select the most environmentally friendly grass for the lawns in a new neighborhood. The lesson provides students with the opportunity to recognize how the voice of citizens can be used to build a sense of community through environmental awareness in this model eliciting activity.

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

Students will assume the roles of various community members involved in a pollution problem in Florida.  They will brainstorm solutions and create a policy to reduce the pollution at their source.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will discover some of the ways humans have impacted South Florida’s environments and explore proposals to help improve and restore them in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will explore how the environmental policies of different countries influence what we consume and how the sustainability of those products influence our society in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson introduces students to complex systems and to basic concepts from the field of system dynamics that lie at the heart of systems thinking. These concepts include stocks and flows, feedback loops, unintended consequences, and the basic principle that the behavior of complex systems can best be understood by looking at the system as a whole, and specifically by analyzing the system’s underlying structure. The lesson introduces these topics through an immersion in (and a role-play simulation of) the dynamics of urban recycling systems, many of which have been thrown into crisis in the past two years. Through this current-affairs example of complex systems in crisis, we identify some key structural features that help to explain how these systems behave over time. We also discover how well-intentioned action can cause negative unintended consequences when we try to intervene in a complex system without understanding how it operates.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will look at a typical water conservation plan and analyze it from the viewpoint of various stakeholders. 

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed to help students understand the impact of pesticide use on human health and the environment.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an intended to support reading in the content area. The article addresses an innovative way to determine the age of the nitrogen in corn and soybean fields. Determining nitrogen's age could help make agriculture more precise, because when farmers over-fertilize their fields, the excess can leak into water supplies. Research scientists from the University of Illinois believe they can use this new technology to identify areas that are specifically deficient in nitrogen and therefore eliminate the need to apply it uniformly. This would benefit agriculture and the environment. 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 lesson, students will analyze an that addresses accidental wastewater spills in North Dakota from the use of fracking. The text describes how fracking has caused widespread water and soil contamination. Researchers have found high levels of contaminants and salt in surface waters. Soil at the spill sites contain radium, and in some places radium was found to be present even 4 years after a spill. Researchers studied almost 4,000 spill sites in North Dakota to connect the soil and water contamination directly to fracking spills. This lesson plan is designed to support reading in the content area; it includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that describes the impact that local ibises have on their environment and the impact that humans have on the birds. The study examines how humans are changing the lifestyles of white ibises, which in turn causes the interactions between birds and humans to lead to a greater spread of disease. The author analyzes the positive and negative effects of interactions between organisms in an ecosystem. The lesson plan includes a text coding strategy, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, sample answer keys, and a writing rubric. Numerous options to extend the lesson are also included.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text selected to support reading in the content area. The article describes how wildlife is impacted by natural events and by humans, focusing on scientific data gathered in the Caribbean (specifically Abaco Island). It explains how humans impact the populations of species in ecosystems and why it is important for people to understand these interactions. 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

This lesson plan is intended to support reading in the content area. In this lesson, students will read an informational text that describes how people in Bangladesh are using homestead farming to provide for their families, while simultaneously contributing to preserving local forests. With the help of USAID, farmers are using higher-yielding seeds and cultivating crops using organic fertilizers and composting. The demand for food grown without pesticides and nourished by compost helps the homestead farmers to make enough money to improve their standard of living, while helping the environment at the same time. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

This resource is about the difficulties of implementing environmental policies and laws that effect human behaviors and land in bordering countries. It uses a reading strategy called SLAM to analyze arguments and identify supporting details in written text.

Type: Lesson Plan

During this lesson, students will learn about green homes and how they allow for a more sustainable future. Students will learn how an individual family's carbon footprint can be reduced by designing their own green home. Students also complete a cost analysis of the expenses in constructing a green home and savings over time.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be learning about natural resources and the human impact on them. Specifically, students will discover where local water sources are and how much water is available within the community using research skills. Students will also design experiments to collect data and discover how residents of the community are using the water and how much they are using. Lastly, they will take the information they discover and the data they collect to hypothesize what the local human impact will be on the water source.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will design their own experiment to discover the human impact on ecosystems around their school environment.

Type: Lesson Plan

This project provides students a hands on experience testing water samples for water quality. The goal is to increase student awareness of local water pollution problems and the human activity that impacts pond ecosystems. This project consists of pre quiz, a lab activity, and a research project.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson plan teaches students about the importance of freshwater, human impact on freshwater systems, and encourages students to modify their personal behavior based on information they learn in discussions and through individual research.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson introduces real-world examples of the consequences of the losses of biodiversity through a TED talk, detailed discussion, and group work.

Type: Lesson Plan

This MEA gives the students an opportunity to learn about sustainability and then apply that knowledge to help EcoAthletica determine the location for their next sustainable tourism resort. The students will use a variety of criteria and the definition of sustainability and sustainable tourism to create a model for choosing locations.

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

The goal of this lesson plan is for students to be able to conduct mini-experiments that demonstrate what ocean acidification is and how it affects marine organisms. Students will perform mini-experiments and observe diagrams to help generate a definition of what ocean acidification is, why it is occurring, and how humans can reduce their impact.

Type: Lesson Plan

The focus of this MEA is oil spills and their effect on the environment. In this activity, students from a fictitious class are studying about the effects of an oil spill on marine ecosystems and have performed an experiment in which they were asked to try to rid a teaspoon of corn oil from a baking pan filled with two liters of water as thoroughly as possible in a limited timeframe and with limited resources. By examining, analyzing, and evaluating experimental data related to resource usage, disposal, and labor costs, students must face the tradeoffs that are involved in trying to preserve an ecosystem when time, money, and resources are limited.

Type: Lesson Plan

The term "anthropogenic" describes something that is caused by human activity. Today we will focus on how our "throw-away" consumer lifestyle has detrimentally affected the environment, and we will look at possible solutions to preventing more harm to the environment and society.

Type: Lesson Plan

The environmental conditions in parks can influence the availability of food, light, space, and water and hence affect the growth and development of animals. It can become worse and lead to endangerment and extinction of various species. The following are areas in nature that can be affected: lakes, plants, animal life in and outside of water and many more.

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. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

Using short videos, articles and a scavenger hunt, students will learn the process of genetically modifying crops and understand the benefits and drawbacks of genetically modified foods.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn about certain how individuals can create threats to the environment, as well as ways to limit these threats. Students will evaluate their own school and its environmental impact as well as ways to reduce negative impact.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn how individual and societal choices affect sustainability and explore ways that you can reduce your impact on the environment with this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn the definition of "sustainability" and understand how our throw away consumer lifestyle has affected the environment in a negative way. In this interactive tutorial, you'll explore possible solutions to prevent further harm to the environment.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Watch as this scientist shines a light on a type of pollution that affects sea turtles.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

In this video, Mark Tancig explains how decomposers are vital to the process of composting.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Ecologist, Rebecca Means, describes the process of determining remote locations in the USA and developing quantitative questions that are appropriate.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Coleman Mackie discusses the process of how he salvages pre-cut timbers from the bottom of river beds, the importance of ring density, buoyancy and the uses of the recovered logs.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

In this video, Molly Jameson explains how worm composting can work for the classroom.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Students will create a management plan to conserve an imperiled species in the state of Florida.

Type: Project

This resource is a student-led project surrounding human impact on the environment in the context of the nature of science (problem solving).

Type: Project

In this activity, the students will analyze the impact of humans on the coral reef ecosystem as a result of human social, political, and economic activities.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will be able to describe the sources of discarded monofilament fishing line and its hazard to wildlife. Students will plan a clean-up campaign in their area. As an option, students can carry out the campaign. During the campaign, students will document the procedure, record the amount of line collected and write a "planning book" to become a resource for others to use.

Type: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article describes a recent development that will allow scientists to help farmers determine the precise amount of nitrogen needed for their corn and soybean fields. The research was conducted by two scientists at the University of Illinois. If farmers can pinpoint the exact amount of fertilizer needed, reducing the amount that runs off or leaches into the water supply, the better for all living organisms on Earth.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes how accidental wastewater spills from fracking have caused soil and water contamination in North Dakota. Researchers from Duke University have been able to prove the contamination comes directly from the North Dakota wells. The text also explains how almost 10,000 wells have been drilled in North Dakota over the past decade, and how the state began producing more than 1 million barrels of oil a day in 2014. Much of the increased production has come through hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes how people in Bangladesh are using homestead farming to provide for their families, while simultaneously contributing to preserving local forests. With the help of USAID, farmers are using higher-yielding seeds and cultivating crops using organic fertilizers and composting. The demand for food grown without pesticides and nourished by compost helps the homestead farmers to make enough money to improve their standard of living, while helping the environment at the same time.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article focuses on scientific data gathered in the Caribbean (specifically Abaco Island). The authors describe how wildlife is impacted by natural events and by humans, and why it is important for people to understand these interactions.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes the interactions between local wildlife (white ibises in Florida) and humans, and the impact that these interactions have on both species. The article presents both benefits as well as potential drawbacks to the close proximity of humans and white ibises. The article also describes how scientists are studying these interactions and their effects.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article examines how the marine environment is affected by shipping containers that accidentally fall to the seafloor. It explores how the containers can be harmful but can also be a benefit to the ecosystem depending on factors such as what the containers are carrying and what the containers are made of.

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. The text describes the way scientists have created the first lab-grown meat and the possible implications of this new technology. An infographic and video are included that add significantly to the content.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article explains the causes and locations of deforestation and explores the environmental consequences that occur because of the practice.

Type: Text Resource

This lab simulation will allow you to explore how carbon circulates through the environment. Through data collection and analysis, you will experiment with the impact that humans are having on the cycling of carbon and make data based predictions on how these impacts may change environmental outcomes to the year 2100.

Type: Tutorial