The ocean is home to some of Earth's most important producers. Single-celled organisms in the ocean are responsible for more than half of Earth's productivity, as well as most of its oxygen. Phytoplankton are single-celled, plantlike organisms. That is, they have chloroplasts and perform photosynthesis, but are not true plants, which are typically…

In this article, the authors describe an investigative activity in which their eighth-grade students reconstructed past environmental change in the New England area using data from lake varves in central Vermont to examine evidence of climate change. The investigation uses an authentic paleoclimate record (Ridge 2011) from the Pleistocene epoch,…

The American Geological Institute is helping teachers and geoscientists to emphasize the importance of inquiry and active investigation of the world around by selecting "Eyes on Planet Earth: Monitoring Our Changing World" as the theme of this year's Earth Science Week. The activity on the back of this month's poster insert, "Monitoring the…

Teachers can use inquiry to make sure that student learning is hands-on and minds-on. There are many levels of inquiry and teachers can even include some of their favorite cookbook labs after modifying them. Inquiry does not always mean lots of time, money, materials, and mess. One of the most important things that inquiry does require of…

Life as known here on Earth exchanges energy and materials with the environment. Life forms grow, develop, produce waste products, and reproduce, storing genetic information in DNA and RNA and passing it from one generation to the next. Life evolves, adapting to changes in the environment and changing the environment in return. The basic unit of…

Presents methods and questions for discussion, activities, role plays, and assessment methods for helping students understand the importance of water conservation. (PR)

Presents an exciting way to acquaint students with current methods to clean up oil spills. Students also have the freedom to create new clean-up methods as they think through the problem and experiment to find effective solutions. (PR)

Introduces an activity on the changes of matter. Uses different colors to represent the phases of water in different temperature ranges and discusses the phase changes of other chemicals. Includes an activity sheet. (YDS)

"We are on the eve of total contamination," said an eighth grade "toxicologist" at a mock town meeting at Mount Baker Middle School in Mount Vernon, Washington. The meeting was the culmination of a month-long investigation by students to determine why some of the townspeople were getting sick. During the unit, students used skills from several…

Author describes five self-developed activities that utilize readily available materials to help students understand surface tension in liquids. The hands-on activities allow students to see that strong bonds hold molecules together in a liquid and the molecules seem to stretch producing a "skin" at the surface of liquids. (PR)

Describes creating a Model Aquatic/Terrestrial Ecosystem for use in helping students understand how water moves beneath the ground's surface. The model is constructed from a fish tank using rocks, soil, gravel, clay, and organic materials. Author describes possible cooperative-learning and problem-solving activities that can be done with this…

Presents background information, science activities, and a color poster on the element chlorine. (PR)

Presents three typical lab activities involving the breathing rate of fish, the behavior of electromagnets, and tests for water hardness to demonstrate how labs can be modified to teach process skills. Discusses how basic concepts about experimentation are developed and ways of generating and improving science experiments. Includes a laboratory…