As a scientist and person who greatly appreciates the natural world, I love visiting national parks. They are spectacular places! You can weave them into science units such as: Biomes Population dynamics (How are population sizes naturally regulated in areas with no hunting? Yellowstone wolves are a great example!) Landforms
Teaching about human impacts on ecosystems and future climate change projections can leave you and your students feeling hopeless and depressed. While I think it’s important to teach the facts and not sugarcoat what is happening to our planet, we can also find ways to give students hope for the
Earth’s oceans are a carbon sink, which is a place where carbon is stored long term. Oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It reacts with seawater, creating carbonic acid, which in turn lowers the pH of the ocean. This phenomena is known as ocean acidification. It will only get
The water cycle is taught starting in elementary school. It seems like in high school biology when I get to the biogeochemical cycles (water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus) the water cycle gets glossed over because we assume the students know it and it’s too basic. But water is vital to
Models can be powerful tools when teaching science. They allow students to visualize concepts that can be difficult to picture in their heads. If you ask students what the most abundant gas in the atmosphere is, their first guess is usually oxygen. And when you say no, their second guess
At the end of every school year we end our life science curriculum with geologic time. It’s one of my favorite units because I get to bust out my fossil collection (If you know me, that’s a big deal).It’s hard to talk about geologic time, mass extinctions, and evolution of
One of the most common projects for invasive species is for students to make a “Most Wanted” poster. Students do research on an invasive species of their choice and create a wanted poster that includes facts about the species and what they would be “wanted” for. It can be fun,
Air pollution is a topic that fits into almost all science content areas. Teach biology? You teach the water and carbon cycles. Environmental science? Climate change and smog. Earth and space science? Layers of the atmosphere and ozone. Chemistry? Water + CO2 = carbonic acid. (Side note: My students recently
I currently live in Phoenix, AZ, which is the 6th largest city in the United States. Considering our large population size and desert climate, we have a huge problem with heat. In the summer it is not uncommon for the temperature to stay above 100F all night. It can be
I love teaching about population growth (ecology is one of my favorite subjects to teach). This topic truly leads to so many rich classroom discussions! Pose some questions at your students and see what their thoughts are: Should we monitor wildlife populations, or just late nature take it’s course? Do we
