Should you buy a hybrid or an electric car to save money and the planet? Students create equations for finding the break-even points of these vehicles by mileage and years of ownership. They then work with systems of equations to…
We have 16 interesting activities to bring home; air quality, erosion, water levels, climate change, solar power, recycling, and changes to our Earth. Use the moment.
In New Orleans revelers throw and collect purple, green, and gold beads. Students get a chance to examine the monetary and environmental cost of this bead exuberance with our unit pricing and recycling activity.
In this activity students determine if this method for minimizing wrapping paper is actually more efficient then the traditional method. For a hands on learning experiment, have students actually wrap a small rectangular prism using any available paper in both the traditional and diagonal methods. Then let them compare the two quantities of wrapping paper and decide which method uses less paper and by what percent.
In mid-August and early September, the Monarch butterflies begin their annual migration south to more moderate climates to hibernate and overwinter. It is an incredibly long migration and fascinating to observe. But, the population data on the Monarchs has seriously…
The AQI is a measurement of how much particulate matter, dangerous ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide there is in the world’s atmosphere at any one time and place. Students learn about the scale of the AQI and research some of the contributors for many unhealthy locations.
Use the open number line and our lists of temperature extremes to make signed number operations and absolute value sensible. Students compare record high and low temps (integers) and use absolute value in order to always find the positive difference. Subtraction of negatives becomes obvious in this lesson.
We recently watched the approach of Hurricane Barry and worried about the fate of Louisiana. After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, what would another powerful hurricane do to this fragile state? What is it about Louisiana that causes so much…
The crack in Antarctica’s Larson C ice shelf has been growing for years. Has the speed of the rift’s growth stayed about the same? increased? decreased? Do the math and discuss the implications. The activity: ice-sheet-rift.pdf
What does this gizmo do? We’ve given students a diagram of what the interior of this mechanism contains and asked them to try to decide what its purpose must be. Then we’ve given them the data that was collected from…
Over the past Easter weekend this giant iceberg drifted passed Ferryland, Newfoundland. Its hard to tell how large it actually is but it looks huge. Use some of the data that was supplied and your estimation skills to gauge the…
A new, fast-growing ice crack is forcing the Halley VI British research station in Antarctica (shown above) to be moved. Fear of a huge break-off from the ice sheet is alarming not just to the scientists on the station but to…
I’m trying to be more savy about wasting our resources. I have really old fashioned toilets and I’m trying to figure out if I should invest in saving water. Can you help me? The activity: PottyTalk.pdf CCSS: 8.F.3, 8.F.4, 8.F.5, HSF.IF.B.4, HSF.IF.B.6, HSF.IF.C.7, HSF.IF.C.9, HSF.LE.A.2, HSF.LE.B.5
I’m going to help save the planet by adding solar panels to my roof! Should I tilt the panels on my roof to more accurately aim towards the Sun? If so, at what angle should I use? Should I be…
Recently McDonald’s announced that by 2016 they will use only chicken raised without the antibiotics that are used in human medicine. McDonald’s plans to join Chick-fil-A, Panera Bread, Chiptotle, and Whole Foods in the move towards removing antibiotics in the…