Sustainability Metrics
Natalie Hunt, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Sustainability is a complex term applied to many different contexts in a variety of ways. As a result, it can be challenging to determine how sustainable something really is. In this module, students will use an ...

Climate Change Module
This module was initially developed by O'Reilly, C.M., D.C. Richardson, and R.D. Gougis. 15 March 2017. Project EDDIE: Climate Change. Project EDDIE Module 8, Version 1.
Scientists agree that the climate is changing and that human activities are a primary cause for this change through increased emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. There have been times in ...

Teleconnections
Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Ecosystems can be influenced by teleconnections, in which meteorological, societal, and/or ecological phenomenon link remote regions via cause and effect relationships. Because it is difficult to predict how ...

Plate Tectonics: GPS Data, Boundary Zones, and Earthquake Hazards
Christopher Berg, Orange Coast College; Beth Pratt-Sitaula, EarthScope; Julie Elliott, Michigan State University
Students work with high precision GPS data to explore how motion near a plate boundary is distributed over a larger region than the boundary line on the map. This allows them to investigate how earthquake hazard ...

Remote Sensing of Plants and Topography in R
Kyla Dahlin, Michigan State University
This module introduces students who are already familiar with remote sensing and R to doing quantitative analyses with large spatial data sets. Students will explore different possible abiotic drivers of plant ...

Paleoclimate and Ocean Biogeochemistry
Allison Jacobel, Middlebury College
This module guides students through an examination of how surface ocean productivity relates to global climate on glacial-interglacial timescales and how the availability of ocean nutrients can be correlated with ...

Nutrient Loading Module
This module was initially developed by Castendyk, D.N., T. Meixner, and C.A. Gibson. 6 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Nutrient Loading. Project EDDIE Module 7, Version 1. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Estimating nutrient loads is a critical concept for students studying water quality in a variety of environmental settings. Many STEM/Environmental science students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic activities on human water resources and/or ecosystems as part of their future careers. This module engages students in exploring factors contributing to the actual loads of nitrogen that are transmitted down streams. Nitrogen is a key water quality contaminant contributing to surface water quality issues in fresh, salt, and estuarine environments. Students will utilize real-time nitrate data from the US Geological Survey to calculate nitrate loads for several locations and investigate the interplay of concentration and discharge that contributes to calculated loads.

Nutrient Monitoring in the Chesapeake Bay
Akinyele Oni, Morgan State University; Niangoran Koissi, Morgan State University
The Chesapeake Bay waters receive input from rivers and streams from areas of Washington D.C, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and some parts of New York and Pennsylvania. Historically, humongous ...

Lake Mixing Module
This module was initially developed by Carey, C.C., J.L. Klug, and R.L. Fuller. 1 August 2015. Project EDDIE: Dynamics of Lake Mixing. Project EDDIE Module 3, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/lake-mixing.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Stratified lakes exhibit vertical gradients in organisms, nutrients, and oxygen, which have important implications for ecosystem structure and functioning. Mixing disrupts these gradients by redistributing these ...

Cross-Scale Interactions
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Environmental phenomena are often driven by multiple factors that interact across different spatial and temporal scales. In freshwater lakes and reservoirs worldwide, phytoplankton blooms are increasing in ...

Climate Change Effects on Lake Temperatures
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Climate change is modifying the thermal structure of lakes around the globe. Because it is difficult to predict how lakes will respond to the many different aspects of climate change (e.g., altered temperature, ...

Water Quality Module
This module was initially developed by Castendyk, D. and Gibson, C. 30 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Water Quality. Project EDDIE Module 6, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/water-quality.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Water quality is a critical concept for undergraduate students studying Earth Sciences, Biology, and Environmental Sciences. Many of these students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic ...

Spectral Seismology Module
This module was initially developed by Soule, D. S., M. Weirathmuller, G. Kroeger, and R. Darner Gougis. 20 March 2017. EDDIE: Spectral Seismology. EDDIE Module 10, Version 1. https://d32ogoqmya1dw8.cloudfront.net/files/enviro_data/activities/spectral_seismology_module-student_.v2.pdf. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707 .
This module that is based on a conceptual presentation of waveforms and filters. "Spectral Seismology" will engage students using seismic and acoustic signals available through Incorporated Research ...

Climate Drivers of Phenology
Emily Mohl, Saint Olaf College
Many species' life cycles are strongly influenced by temperature, but other cues, like day length and precipitation, can also trigger life cycle changes. Phenology is a way of recording the time when events, ...

Lake Ice Phenology Module
This module was initially developed by Carey, C.C., J.L. Klug, and D.C. Richardson. 1 April 2015. Project EDDIE: Lake Ice Phenology. Project EDDIE Module 1, Version 1: cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/ice-phenology.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Lakes are changing worldwide due to altered climate. Many lakes that were historically frozen in the winter are now experiencing fewer days of ice cover and earlier ice-off dates. In this module, students will ...

Environmental Pollution & Public Health
Alanna Lecher, Lynn University
Environmental health is a field of study within public health that is concerned with human-environment interactions, and specifically, how the environment influences public well-being. In this module, students will explore how environmental pollution impacts public health through comparing cancer rates of areas with known environmental pollutants to the national average through a t-test. Students can further their knowledge by comparing the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants in areas with known sources to control sites without such sources. Project EDDIE modules are designed with an A-B-C structure to make them flexible and adaptable to a range of student levels and course structures.

Stream Discharge Module
This module was initially developed by Bader, N.E., T. Meixner, C.A. Gibson, C.M. O'Reilly, and D.N. Castendyk. 26 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Stream Discharge. Project EDDIE Module 5, Version 2. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/stream-discharge.shtml Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Stream discharge is a fundamental measure of water supply in stream systems. Low discharge may cause problems with water supply and fish passage, while high discharge may mean flooding. In this module, students ...

Soil Respiration Module
This module was initially developed by Nave, L.E., N. Bader, and J.L. Klug. 25 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Soil Respiration. Project EDDIE Module 9, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/soil-respiration.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Soils hold more carbon (C) than any other component of the terrestrial biosphere! In this module, students will explore high-frequency, sensor-based datasets documenting climate variables and the emissions of C (as ...

Macro-Scale Feedbacks
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Environmental phenomena are often driven by multiple factors that interact across space and over time. In freshwater lakes and reservoirs worldwide, carbon cycling and subsequent carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane ...

Lake Metabolism Module
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Different lakes exhibit a range of catchment sizes, morphometry, and land use that contribute to differences in lake function. These functional differences mean that lakes vary in ecosystem services such as habitat ...

Green Infrastructure/Green Roofs
Elizabeth Farrell, Nassau Community College
Runoff in urban areas is an increasingly important issue when it comes to water quality. It is a major hydrologic issue in New York City, as urban infrastructure creates excess runoff and impervious surfaces ...

Biomes, Vegetation Structure, and Canopy Height
Mary Mulcahy, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford
Students will develop a concept of vegetation structure and biomes through an exploration of field site data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) project. Students will compare characteristics of major groups of plants with respect to heat and drought tolerance, develop hypotheses for how canopy height may vary by several abiotic factors, and evaluate their hypotheses using graphed data, trendlines and r-squared values.

Bomb Cyclones - They're Explosive!
Jacqui Degan, Cape Fear Community College
Storms can have devastating impacts on coastal communities. Typically, tropical storms like hurricanes get the most attention, but there are other types of storms that occur at more northern latitudes that can be ...

Paleoclimate of the last 2k years
Sean Bryan, Colorado State University
Paleoclimate data provide essential information about Earth's temperature prior to the instrumental record. These data give us context for recent anthropogenic (human-caused) warming; they provide insight into ...

Hypoxia in Coastal Marine Ecosystems
Annette Brickley; Kathy Browne, Rider University; Gabriela Smalley, Rider University
Aquatic ecosystems are home to a complex intersection of physical and biological factors and an intersection of natural and anthropogenic factors. In the Chesapeake Bay, low oxygen events have occurred periodically ...

Prairie Eco Services
Kelly Knight, Houston Community College System
As densely populated urban areas continue to expand, human activity is removing much-needed greenspaces from our communities; in turn, we are also removing critical buffers that are needed to combat air and water ...

Where Does Stream Water Come From?
Christa Torrens, University of Colorado at Boulder
In this module, students explore various sources of stream water through reading, discussion, and data analysis in R. The module focuses on streams from four distinct LTER sites: an Antarctic desert stream, an Arizona desert stream, an Arctic tundra stream, and a temperate forest stream in New England.

Using Data to Improve Ecological Forecasts
Mary Lofton, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Tadhg Moore, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Quinn Thomas, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
How can we use data to improve ecological forecasts? To be useful for management, ecological forecasts need to be both accurate enough for managers to be able to rely on them for decision-making and include a ...

Major Ions in Freshwater Systems
Megan Kelly, Loyola University Chicago
Dissolved ions are present in all freshwater systems, but humans can change the chemical composition of freshwater in several ways. In this activity, students will examine the concentration of major ions in ...

Exploring diatom biodiversity in the Everglades and Caribbean wetlands
Katherine Johnson, Florida International University; Gabriel Kamener, Florida International University
Water quality assessments frequently include biological indicators to evaluate aquatic ecosystem habitat type and health. Because diatoms are ubiquitous and are found in habitats where macroinvertebrates are not, ...

Exploring the relationship between periphyton and water quality in karstic wetlands
Gabriel Kamener, Florida International University; Katherine Johnson, Florida International University
Physicochemical properties and nutrients drive aquatic processes that sustain biota. Therefore, aquatic assessments usually investigate these variables as well as biological indicators to gain a better ...

Investigating Bacterial Contamination in Snapfinger Creek
Samantha Andrews, Georgia State University
Water quality is a global concern for natural and potable water sources. Lack of access to clean water due to poor sanitation can lead to microbial disease outbreaks, such as cholera, that can cause serious ...

Tracking hot spots and hot moments in an urban freshwater estuary
Gaston Small, University of St. Thomas (MN)
This module explores the hydrology and biogeochemistry of the St. Louis River Estuary (Duluth, Minnesota). The overarching question of the module is: when, and where, is the estuary acting as a source vs. a sink ...

Exploring the Global Carbon Budget
Dan Maxbauer, Carleton College
How much carbon is emitted each year due to human activity? How does that number compare to rates of exchange between carbon cycle reservoirs? Where do our carbon emissions go? In this module, students will explore global carbon budget data to 1) determine the rate of change in carbon emissions, 2) explore changes in carbon cycle sinks over time to investigate where carbon emissions end up, and 3) determine what kinds of rates of change are needed to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the future.

Phenology Trends and Climate Change in Minnesota
Pamela Freeman, The College of Saint Scholastica
Seasonal events, for example flowering, fruiting, and the return of migrating birds, happen at particular times of the year. Some of these events happen in relation to climate, while others are dependent on other ...

Distribution and Fate of Volatile Organic Contaminants (VOCs)
Federico Sinche, Loyola University Chicago
Volatile organic contaminants (VOCs) are organic compounds generated from different industrial processes around the world. VOCs are ubiquitous contaminants, and some can be genotoxic, mutagenic and act as endocrine disruptors, thus representing a risk to ecosystems and human health. High levels of VOCs have been reported in industrialized countries such as the US. In this module, students will explore how the distribution of VOCs has changed over time. Students will then compare types and concentrations of VOCs among the US states in the context of geography, urbanization, industrialization, and fossil emissions as contributing factors of air pollution.

Museum Collections: Junk Drawers or Mirrors of Fossil Diversity?
David Cordie, Edgewood College
Are museum collections a perfect reflection of diversity in the past, or are they a junk drawer full of odds and ends that just happen to be collected? The fossil record is the best tool we have for studying ...