AP/IB/Honors Environmental Science Activity Browse

Search for activities specifically designed for introductory college level environmental science courses. Refine this search by either clicking on the terms in boxes to the right or typing a term into the search box below. Activities include a description, background information, and necessary student documents.

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Grade Level: College Lower (13-14)

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Results 1 - 20 of 1704 matches

Understanding Doppler radar radial velocity fields part of Pedagogy in Action:Library:Spatial Reasoning with GeoClick Questions:Examples
This activity is designed to help students learn how to interpret Doppler radial velocity radar images with meteorological applications, as well as giving students a chance to practice their spatial skills.

Wind and Ocean Ecosystems part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Wind has a fundamental impact on ocean ecosystems. Wind drives physical processes, including current development and upwelling through Ekman transport. These physical processes, in turn, have cascading impacts on ...

Investigating Wildfire Smoke and Air Quality in the DMV Using MATLAB and EPA Dataset part of Teaching Computation with MATLAB:MATLAB Workshop 2026:Activities
How does fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) air pollution change over time, and what can observations tell us about a wildfire smoke episode? In this classroom activity, students use MATLAB to retrieve and analyze ...

Assessing the Risk of Invasive Species Using Community Science Data part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
This module introduces students who are already familiar with GIS to doing comparative analyses with large-scale community science (often called citizen science) data sets. Students will explore how we can use ...

Climate Change Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...

Unit 2: Geophysical Properties of the Subsurface part of Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity
Archie (1950) defined the term petrophysics to describe the study of the physics of rocks, particularly with respect to the fluids they contain. Although originally focused on geophysical exploration, petrophysics ...

Unit 3: Codorus Creek Case Study: Measuring and Interpreting Seismic Refraction Data part of Measuring Depth to Bedrock Using Seismic Refraction
This unit presents an applied case study example and the associated concepts related to designing a seismic survey and analyzing the data. It discusses parts of the instrument and presents practical experience ...

Unit 1: Exploring Harrier Meadow, an Urban Wetland System part of Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity
Students will conduct a virtual exploration of Harrier Meadow, a salt marsh in the New Jersey Meadowlands. They will identify its vulnerability to pollution, its tidal connection to the Hackensack Estuary and the ...

Bomb Cyclones - They're Explosive! part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...

Module 5 Human Dimensions in the Poles part of Oceans in the News:Oceans in the News – Polar Ocean Science, Data, and the Media
This unit covers the concept of bioaccumulation of contaminants in a food web, all the way up to humans. Students learn about what constitutes a contaminant, how contaminants can accumulate in an organism and move ...

Paleoclimate and Ocean Biogeochemistry part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...

Measuring Plate Motion with GPS: Iceland | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
This lesson teaches middle and high school students to understand the architecture of GPS—from satellites to research quality stations on the ground. This is done with physical models and a presentation. Then students learn to interpret data for the station's position through time ("time series plots"). Students represent time series data as velocity vectors and add the vectors to create a total horizontal velocity vector. They apply their skills to discover that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is rifting Iceland. They cement and expand their understanding of GPS data with an abstraction using cars and maps. Finally, they explore GPS vectors in the context of global plate tectonics.

Exploring California's Plate Motion and Deformation with GPS | Lessons on Plate Tectonics part of Geodesy:Activities
Students analyze data to study the motion of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. From GPS data, students detect relative motion between the plates in the San Andreas fault zone--with and without earthquakes. To get to that discovery, they use physical models to understand the architecture of GPS, from satellites to sensitive stations on the ground. They learn to interpret time series data collected by stations (in the spreading regime of Iceland), to cast data as horizontal north-south and east-west vectors, and to add those vectors head-to-tail.Students then apply their skills and understanding to data in the context of the strike-slip fault zone of a transform plate boundary. They interpret time series plots from an earthquake in Parkfield, CA to calculate the resulting slip on the fault and (optionally) the earthquake's magnitude.

Unit 4: The Magic of Geophysical Inversion part of Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity
This unit introduces the student to the concept of geophysical inversion, which is the process of estimating the geophysical properties of the subsurface from the geophysical observations. The basic mechanics of ...

Nutrient Monitoring in the Chesapeake Bay part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...

Economics: Sea level rise part of PENGUIN:PENGUIN Modules
This module is framed from the perspective of a city planner trying to determine how much to spend on a local seawall given different scenarios of sea level rise and the associated storm surge and higher flood ...

Spectral Seismology Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...

Frequency of Large Earthquakes part of EarthScope ANGLE:Educational Materials:Activities
Using the IRIS Earthquake Browser tool, students gather data to support a claim about how many large (Mw 8+) earthquakes will happen globally each year. This activity provides scaffolded experience downloading data and manipulating data within a spreadsheet.

Unit 3: Field Geophysical Measurements part of Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity
Near-surface geophysical measurements are performed by moving sensors across the earth's surface. Active geophysical sensors transmit a signal into the earth and record a returned signal that contains ...

Water Quality Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
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 ...