Virtual Field Trips

A Summer on Golden Pond Overview

Duration: 7:45

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: You Are My Sunshine, K-1 Grades

Goal

Students will learn about how the living things living in and near the lake rely on each other and how the changing seasons create changes in their lives.

Overview

Former biology teacher, Karlene Schwartz, introduces students to the stories of the loons and many other creatures that call Squam Lake home, which is located in New Hampshire. As her tale goes on, students can see how the seasons cause changes to the lives on the lake.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
You Are My Sunshine

The sun’s thermal effects can create changes in materials. The tilting of the earth on its axis causes a change in the energy transmitted by the sun to the earth. This causes changes in the weather, which contributes to the changing seasons. As the seasons change, the living things on the earth change with them.

Guiding Questions

1. What is one word Karlene would use to describe her feelings for Squam Lake? Why did you pick this feeling?
2. The plants and animals that live on Squam Lake changed a lot in summer and fall. What were some of those changes? How do you think the lake will change during winter and spring? Why do you think so? Will this winter and spring look like yours where you live? How will they be alike and different?
3. Change happens everywhere on the lake throughout the year. Can you think of a change a person could create on the lake? Will it be a good thing or a bad thing? Why?

How to Recycle

Duration: 4:37 (cc)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: We Built This School, Grade 2

Goal

Students will learn why recycling is important to our communities and our planet. They will also learn what can be recycled and the steps to creating a recycling program in their home.

Overview

Students will learn how much waste is created each year and how much of that can be recycled. They will learn which items can be recycled as well as how to create and implement a recycling program in their own home.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: We Built This School

Living sustainably means using resources wisely. Our society creates volumes of trash daily, much of it that is able to be reused. Recycling waste allows resources to be used more than once, and, at the same time, lessen the load on landfills.

Guiding Questions

1. Imagine that recycling bins could talk. What would it say to people putting in waste? Why do you think that?
2. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that while 75% of American trash can be recycled, only about 35% of it is. (Teacher may wish to review what these figures mean.) After learning about how to recycle, why do you think less than half of trash that can be recycled is recycled?
3. Different cities have different rules for what can be recycled and what cannot. Compare your cities list of recyclable materials to what you heard in the video.

Composting Food Waste

Produced by
City of Plano Sustainability and Environmental Health Department

Please Note: To view this content, you will be leaving the EarthX website. It is offered by our educational friends listed below through their website.

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Getting Dirty, Grade 3

Goal

Students will learn about various ways to use composting as a way to deal with food waste.

Overview

Students will be taken on an interactive journey that teaches them the basics of creating a compost bin. Three different types are explored: Outdoor Bio-Digester, Bokashi Bucket and Indoor Worm Bin. This lesson will not go in depth into the three types of composting. (You may include other sections to extend the lesson as you see fit.)Segments referred to include: Introduction, Getting Started, and Conclusion. Please note there is a Menu to the right that will aid you in navigating the lesson as well as a Glossary of terms. You can also find pdf materials in the upper righthand corner of the screen entitled “Resources.”

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Getting Dirty

In this lesson, students learn about soil composition and explore the impact of human development on the soil in their area. To further this study, the interactive content guides the students through the process of creating a compost bin and how it can develop rich soil.

Guiding Questions

1. Can you create a slogan that describes the importance of worms in composting?
2. Three different kinds of composting were discussed: Bio-digester, Bokashi Bucket and Indoor Worm Bin. Which one do you think you would like to try and why?
3. Composting is one solution to the waste problem you can do at your home. Can you think of other things you can do to help reduce the amount of waste in our landfills?

How Do Hurricane Hunters Track Storms?

Video Courtesy of Group Nine Media, Inc.
Shared Through

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Rock Me Like a Hurricane, Grade 4

Goal

Students will learn about the variety of personnel needed on a flight to gather critical data to determine the track and intensity of a hurricane.

Overview

Jessica Williams, a meteorologist and flight director for NOAA, tells us about the different jobs that are carried out on a flight to track a hurricane. She also discusses the importance of hurricane hunters and the job they do.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: Rock Me Like a Hurricane

During the lesson, students will discover the destruction a hurricane can cause. The viewing of the video will detail how data about hurricanes that are forming is gathered and then shared with the public in an effort to prepare them.

Guiding Questions

1. How is a member of a hurricane hunting flight crew like a predator hunting its prey?
2. Ms. Williams mentions the many important jobs that are carried out on a mission. They include: flight director, pilot, lead scientist, flight engineer, navigator, dropsonde operator and data processor. Review the responsibilities of each of these jobs (1:22-1:50 and 2:13-4:12) If you were to choose one of these jobs, which one would you choose and why?
3. The flight director leads all of the different people so they can carry out their job effectively. Tell about a time you have led a group. What was the most important thing you did and what skill(s) did you need to do it?

Plastic Seas – Plastic Solutions Overview

Duration: 7:33 (cc)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Trash to Cash, 5th Grade

Goal

Students will be introduced to a wide variety of solutions to the plastic pollution currently being implemented in parts of Australia.

Overview

Phillippe Cousteau talks with Jennifer Lavers, Heidi Taylor, Donna Shiel, Anthony Hill, and others from Melbourne, Australia, to uncover a variety of solutions to plastic pollution that everyone can do.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Trash to Cash

The reuse of waste is one way to cut down on the amount of trash heading to our landfills. Plastics are one type of waste that take hundreds of years to biodegrade and often end up in our oceans and waterways. Finding ways to deal with this type of pollution is vital.

Guiding Questions

1. What is one word you have to describe the plastic pollution problem? How does this describe it?
2. What are ways mentioned in the video that can reduce the amount of plastic in the environment?
3. It was mentioned that “I am only one drop, but it is many drops that make an ocean.” How does this relate to your impact on the plastic pollution problem? What can you do to make a difference?

What’s the Catch? Engineering Solutions Overview

Duration: 6:13 (cc) ENG/SP

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Locally Grown, 5th Grade

Goal

Students will learn about innovative solutions that are being implemented in order to help fish thrive and be abundant enough to support a growing world population.

Overview

Phillippe Cousteau hears from Dr. Louise Firth, Dr. Daniel Merrifield and Justin Ruscombe-King about innovative work being done to help fish populations stay healthy in order to feed a growing global population. Shown are an engineered coastal habitat and an aquaculture farm.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Locally Grown

Native plants on land have adaptations suitable to their environment just as native fish have theirs. As human population growth increases along the coasts, people must make adjustments to their coastal environments in a way that will create ecosystems favorable to the aquatic life living there. In addition, native species of fish should be encouraged to be raised for human consumption in a manner that keeps in mind the best use of natural resources.

Guiding Questions

1. Which coastal environmental solution do you think will produce the least amount of human impact on aquatic life sharing the ecosystem?
2. Mr. Cousteau states that long term sustainable seafood needs to cater to local fish species. How can aquaculture assist in that goal?
3. What would happen if fish were no longer available to your community as a source of protein?

Effect of Urbanization on Wetland Functions

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Let It Be, Grade 5

Goal

Students will learn how wetlands help to maintain balanced ecosystems and how urbanization has disturbed their ability to do so.

Overview

Educators from the John Bunker Sands Wetland Center, Carol Garrison and Edie Hillborn, discuss the 5 functions of a wetlands that are impaired through urbanization. Using visual images and demonstrations, students will understand how wetlands help with flood control, groundwater recharge, water quality, wildlife habitat and migratory habitat.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Let It Be

During the lesson, students will discover the many ways urbanization affects the existing ecosystem. The video shows how wetlands can help to mitigate some of these effects, as well as demonstrate how urbanization negatively impacts the ecosystem of the wetland.

Guiding Questions

1. If a city and a wetland could talk, what would they say to each other?
2. One fact mentioned in the beginning of the video was: More than half of the 220 million acres of wetlands in the US have been destroyed since the American Revolution (circa 1780) due to house, roadway and industrial construction. Describe the impact this has had on the environment.
3. What can you do in your own life to help bring balance into your ecosystem? (How can you minimize the human impact on your “habitat?”)

The Land Bridge at Phil Hardberger Park

Produced by
City of San Antonio Public Works Department

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Diversity Makes Us Stronger, Grade 5

Goal

Students will learn how one city designed a land bridge across a major freeway to join two sections of a park. This bridge provides safe passage to both the people and animals that find themselves on either side of the major highway dividing the park.

Overview

Students will hear from former San Antonio Mayor, Phil Hardberger, as he talks about the construction of the Robert L.B. Tobin Land Bridge. This land bridge bridges the gap, connecting visitors to once divided sections of Phil Hardberger Park. The bridge is one-of-a-kind providing a safe path for people and animals to cross over lanes of traffic on a busy freeway.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: Diversity Makes Us Stronger

In this lesson, students learn about the detrimental effects of urbanization on wildlife diversity. The video exemplifies one attempt to try to solve this problem by creating a “wildlife mini-corridor.”

Guiding Questions

1. If the land bridge was a super-hero, what super power would it possess? Why do you think so?
2. The former mayor predicts the land bridge will become an iconic destination of San Antonio. What might one of the animals living in Hardberger Park have to say about the bridge? Why do you think so?
3. The bridge seeks to solve a conflict between human development and wildlife. Has there been a time when you have tried to “bridge a gap” between people with differences?

Waste-to-Energy Facility Virtual Tour

Duration: 3:15 (cc)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: In the ‘Zone, 6th Grade

Goal

Students will learn of an alternate source of energy that is created from the transition of waste to electricity.

Overview

Students will be taken on a virtual tour of the Waste-to-Energy Facility in Metro Vancouver. They will view the process from the start with the arrival of trash, through the transition of the trash to steam and ultimately how it is changed to electricity.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
In the ‘Zone

There are many energy resources in use today, some renewable and some not. In addition, the different energy sources negatively impact the environment to different degrees. The waste-to-energy facilities plant toured in the video attempts to create an alternative source of energy that has a low negative impact on air quality while at the same time lessening the impact of solid waste.

Guiding Questions

1. Do you think the Waste-to-Energy Facility has a greater impact on landfills or on energy production? Why?
2. The video opens with the phrase, “Resilient Resource Recovery” that could act as a hashtag for the beginning of the video. Can you create other tags or anchors for the video at the following time stamps: :56; 1:16; 1:43; 3:00?
3. The waste-to-energy production process is a closed loop system. Can you think of other closed loop processes in your own life? (i.e. temperature control through thermostat, riding a bike, obtaining a good water temperature in a bath)

Urban Trees and Climate Adaptation

Duration: 4:20 (cc)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Guaran-Treed Oxygen, 6th Grade

Goal

Students will learn how one city is creating a decision-making framework in order to best identify trees that will be successful in an urban environment undergoing a change in climate.

Overview

Students will learn how trees that grow in a forest outside of an urban area will have different needs than those grown in a city. They will also see how the additional environmental change in the climate requires rethinking of tree species to be included in an urban setting.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Guaran-Treed Oxygen

Students learn the importance of trees as they provide ecosystem services. The city of Vancouver is researching planting different types of trees to ensure the changes in their climate will be taken into account.

Guiding Questions

1. What job title would you give a tree planted in an urban area? Why did you give it that name?
2. The statement was made (2:00) “Choosing tree species carefully is one of the most important considerations that determine their resilience.” What plant needs must be kept in mind when choosing trees to be used in the city?
3. Think of a time when you have had to adapt to a change. Can you tell how it is like the city of Vancouver’s efforts to plant resilient urban forests?

Green Building Challenge

Produced by
City of Plano Sustainability and Environmental Health Department

Please Note: To view this content, you will be leaving the EarthX website. It is offered by our educational friends listed below through their website.

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Windows to Efficiency, 6th Grade

Goal

Students will learn about various strategies and technologies for creating a sustainable building design.

Overview

Students will be taken on a “self-guided” tour of a LEED award-winning building and learn about the various design initiatives that went into its creation. After learning about this, they will have the option to take a quiz to earn additional “coins” to use in the online game as they design their own building.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Windows to Efficiency

Various building materials affect the energy efficiency and thermal transfer of a building in different ways. The interactive Green Building Challenge presents a variety of technologies and strategies that create a highly “green” structure.

Guiding Questions

1. If the building you are now in could talk, what grade would it give itself for how “Green” it was, and why?
2. What 3 technologies or design features are the best to include when designing a green building? Tell why you think so.
3. Can you suggest one change to the building you are in that would allow it to “interact” with nature in a sustainable way (i.e. include nature as a part of the building design.) What advantage(s) would the change have?

Virgin Hyperloop Experience

Duration: 2:21 (cc)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Potentially Perpetual, Grade 6

Please Note: To view this content, you will be leaving the EarthX website. It is offered by Virgin Hyperloop through their website.

Be sure to read the information on the Virgin landing page and then click on Learn More in the Passenger Experience section.

Goal

Students will analyze information from a video and an essay to learn about a possible innovation in mass transit technology.

Overview

This lesson synthesizes information from a short video, Virgin Hyperloop Experience, and an informational essay, It’s Faster, Cheaper, Safter… Could It Be Hyperloop? Both of these materials review a new technology for mass transit that relies on passenger pods being transported through tubes. Students may choose to view the video either prior to reading the essay or after, whichever will provide them with the best prior knowledge. They may also wish to view the video both before and after reading the passage.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: Potentially Perpetual

In the STEAM lesson, students explore how energy is created to power many types of engines. They are then challenged to create a form of mass transit that is powered by green energy. Once these concepts are reviewed, a discussion into the theoretical workings of the hyperloop technology can further develop these ideas.

Guiding Questions

1. What slogan could you create to advertise a newly activated hyperloop route in your area?
2. What would be the most important advantage of having hyperloop routes established throughout the world?
3. If hyperloop technology is able to be developed, it will cause people to think of how mass transportation is powered in a new way. Many times people resist change. Can you think of a time when you had to convince someone to adopt a new way of thinking or doing something? What strategies did you use that proved helpful in persuading people to consider your idea(s)?

Water by Design – Aquaponics Overview

Duration: 6:38 (cc)

Produced by
EarthEcho International

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Energizing Your Lawn, 7th Grade

Goal

Students will learn about an innovative closed system of agriculture that creates an environmentally sustainable food source.

Overview

Phillippe and Ashlan Cousteau meet with executive chef and farmer Adam Navidi to find out how he uses aquaponics to grow food for his restaurant using less water than the average family uses at home on a daily basis.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Energizing Your Lawn

The growing of food to feed a growing population has changed from small farms feeding the local population, to food being sourced hundreds or even thousands of miles away. The resources demanded of this type of agriculture has environmental consequences. Alternative farming methods can help with these issues.

Guiding Questions

1. Aquaponics provides many benefits. Which advantage to this type of agriculture do you think is the most important to Chef Navidi? Why?
2. Hydroponics and aquaponics are similar forms of growing crops. Compare and contrast these two processes.
3. How can you use the information about growing crops shared in this video as you make food choices in your life?

Swales are Swell and So Are Rain Gardens

Duration: 6:59 (cc)

Produced by
California State Water Resources Control Board

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Get Your Deposit Back, 7th Grade

Goal

Students will learn how the use of swales and rain gardens that homeowners create on their property can have a positive impact on their watershed.

Overview

Students will see how agencies, NGO’s, and residents can work together to create landscapes that hinders the runoff of soil and pollution into storm drains that inevitably ends up in rivers, streams and other larger bodies of water.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Get Your Deposit Back

Students learn in the STEAM lesson how runoff, deposition and erosion can harm a watershed and look into ways to solve some of these issues. The video looks in-depth into the use of swales and rain gardens as ways to keep polluted water out of storm drains that feed into our waterways.

Guiding Questions

1. If swales and rain gardens were superheroes, what would be their name? What super powers would they have? Why do you think this?
2. The main title to this series of videos is, “Slow the Flow.” How do plants help accomplish this?
3. Many homeowners may find it difficult to change the way they think about how they landscape their lawns. Can you give them advice that helped you when you had to change a habit or a way of doing something?

Anatomy of Hurricane Resistant Homes

Duration: 2:05

(Total class time dependent on readers’ discussions)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Sustainably Sound, Grade 7

Goal

Students will analyze information from a video and essay to learn about innovations in building design that combat the negative impact due to the increase in extreme weather events.

Overview

This lesson synthesizes information from a short video, Anatomy of a Hurricane Resistant Home, and an informational essay, Architecture for Extreme Weather Events. Both of these materials review building design concepts that are being implemented to decrease negative impact to homes and the people living in them as the number of extreme weather incidents increases. Students may choose to view the video either prior to reading the essay or after, whichever will provide them with the best prior knowledge. They may also wish to view the video both before and after reading the passage.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: Sustainably Sound

In the STEAM lesson, students explore the damage that is created from weather-related natural disasters and are asked to design a structure to better withstand a specific type of weather event. The video and accompanying informational essay detail particular design features to combat the effects of high wind on structures.

Guiding Questions

1. How is the story of the Three Little Pigs like the information found in both the video and the essay?
2. The information from both the video and essay detail how both shape and materials are important in the creation of wind-resistant homes. Which of these two concepts, shape or materials, do you think are most important, and why? (Some students may suggest that a combination of both is desired.)
3. Our climate is changing. What advice about enduring this change would you give to people?

Exploring Watersheds

Duration: 12:12 (cc)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Get Your Deposit Back, Grade 7

Goal

Students will observe a simulation of a watershed, predict outcomes as the demonstration progresses, and discuss ways to protect the watershed in which they live.

Overview

Aaron Hoff, Watershed Programs Manager for TRWD, guides students through a simulation of how a watershed works as its 3 components, water, sediment/soil and vegetation, interact. Students will be asked to contemplate various questions posed throughout the video and to take a challenge to protect the watershed they live in.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: Get Your Deposit Back

During the lesson, students will discover the results of poor erosion control and how it affects the water quality of a watershed This video gives background information about how erosion occurs and how the resulting sediment creates problems in the watershed. The other video offered for this lesson in Virtual Field Trips highlights solutions to this problem.

Guiding Questions

1. If the “house” that fell into the stream could talk, what advice would it give?
2. Which of the three components of a watershed has the greatest impact on keeping a watershed “healthy?” (Accept any answer that is logically supported by reason.)
3. Water, sediment, and vegetation react together to determine the quality of the watershed in which you live. What can you do with the help of others or on your own to help protect it?

Sea Turtles and Their Ecosystem Overview

Duration: 7:14

Produced by
Sea Turtle, Inc.

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Back to the Future, 8th Grade

Goal

Students will learn about the vital role sea turtles play in their ecosystem, how humans have affected their well-being and what can be done to counteract the negative influence.

Overview

Khrystyne explains the importance of the many varieties of sea turtles inhabiting Laguna Madre off of the Gulf of Mexico on the Texas coast. She will introduce students to two of the sea turtles recovering at their facility and discuss how human actions have threatened the health of sea turtles.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Back to the Future

As more humans settled the western part of the United States in the 1800’s, they had both a positive and negative impact on the ecosystems they found. When a negative impact was made, it affected multiple organisms. Sea turtles are experiencing similar effects from negative human interaction as well.

Guiding Questions

1. What one word would you use to describe a sea turtle’s presence on the Texas coast and why would you use it?
2. How would the Texas coast ecosystem change without a healthy sea turtle population?
3. Whether you live by the ocean or are a landlocked land lover, what can you do to bring balance to the ocean ecosystem?

Beyond the Dead Zone Pt. 2 Overview

Duration: 9:22 (cc)

Produced by
EarthEcho International

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Reef-Life, 8th Grade

Goal

Students will be introduced to how the health of a reef off the coast of Florida is being monitored in order to find ways to protect it.

Overview

Phillippe Cousteau and US Geological Survey Marine Biologist Ilsa Kuffner dive below the surface to explore the invisible threats to corals that may impact all marine life in these waters.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Reef-Life

Creating artificial reefs helps restore an ocean’s ecosystem. Through the creation of an artificial reef, research as to the health conditions of the area can be monitored to better understand how to keep reefs thriving.

Guiding Questions

1. If coral had a Twitter account, what hashtag would they use and why?
2. How do the marine biologists monitor the health of their cinder block coral? How can they use this data?
3. What can you do to help maintain the health of coral reefs and other marine life?

Sustainable Off-Grid Energy from Free Flowing Rivers

Duration: 3:38 (cc)

Produced by
Ocean Renewable Power Company

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Lunar Energy, 8th Grade

Goal

Students will learn the importance of incorporating the new technology of harnessing the energy of river currents for a remote Alaskan village in a way that is mindful of the culture of the people living there.

Overview

Students will see how a community living on the Kvichak River in Igiugig, Alaska, work with a power company to use renewable energy created from the river’s currents as the source of the power that will create their electricity. They will learn about the importance of the river in their culture and why it was important for the power company to fully understand the values of this indigenous community.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Lunar Energy

Students learn in the STEAM lesson that electricity can be generated from the tidal movements created by the moon. The video explores another solution to providing renewable energy, this time by using the continuous currents of a river.

Guiding Questions

1. The Kvichak River is very important to the people of Igiugig. What one word best describes it and why?
2. Analyze the section of the video from 2:27-2:57. Describe how the RivGen system works to create energy for the community’s grid.
3. Discuss ways the river is a powerful part of the culture of the community and how the people have respected it. What/who has had a powerful impact in your life in a positive way, and how do you show respect?

Food Web / Ocean Acidification

Food Web Duration: 3:24 (cc) Ocean Acidification Duration: 2:50 (cc)

Produced by
Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: The Temps They Are A’Changin, Grade 8

Goal

Students will analyze information from two videos to understand how the increase in carbon dioxide in the air, which is absorbed by the ocean, threatens the oceanic ecosystem.

Overview

This lesson synthesizes information from two videos to allow students to piece together the influence high levels of carbon in the environment has on ocean life. Jessica Harvey, star of the Expedition Notebook series of ocean videos, leads viewers of “Food Web” through a discussion of what makes up the ocean’s food web. In the second video entitled “Ocean Acidification,” she details how increased carbon in the ocean is creating a toxic environment for the ecosystem.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: The Temps They Are A’Changin

In the STEAM lesson, students explore the connections between greenhouse gases and climate change. The videos show how the altered chemistry of the oceans caused by increased carbon absorption could threaten the oceanic food web.

Guiding Questions

1. “Food Web” demonstrates the transfer of energy through a pyramid model. Do you think a web or a pyramid is a better way to show how an ecosystem works? Why do you think so?
2. What type of impact would the decrease of calcifying organisms have on a coral reef trophic pyramid?
3. There are actions mentioned at the end of “Ocean Acidification” that could be taken to lessen the impact of increased carbon levels. Which one do you think would have the greatest impact and why? Which one would you be most likely to adopt?

Clear Water, Clean Water? Exploring the Floridan Aquifer Overview

Duration: 14:31

Produced by
SchoolYard Films, Inc.

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Growing Pains, High School

Goal

Students will learn about the geology and ecology of an aquifer, what its current threats are, and how to best protect this vital natural resource.

Overview

Florida scientists, explorers, and citizens team up to provide a look at the health of the Florida Aquifer, the primary source of water for over 25 million people in the southeastern US. There are signs that human activity may be negatively affecting the water quality, both above and below the surface.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Growing Pains

Pollutants from common household products and nitrogen runoff from farms create a negative impact on living things, such as plants. They can also harm water sources that provide drinking water for humans, affecting them negatively for the long term.

Guiding Questions

1. Connecting people to their environment is important to the team of citizens and scientists presenting this video. What environmental connection do you think is the most important?
2. The Floridan Aquifer is vital, yet unseen. How does this observation contribute to the issue facing the aquifer?
3. What #hashtag would you create to identify the connections of humans to the earth? What further actions could you take to promote this idea?

To Better Our Community Overview

Duration: 10:01 (cc)

Produced by
Partnership for Gulf Coast Land Conservation

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Shedding the Traditional, High School

Goal

Students will learn how community planning that includes land conservation can positively impact water quality that comes from storm water runoff.

Overview

Students will see how one community in Mississippi has used a watershed-based approach to the development of their town to improve the water quality along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. This plan includes the use of land conservation that allows the soil to act as a filter. Students will use information from the video and a Fact Sheet in parallel to explore this solution.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson:
Shedding the Traditional

Students learn in the STEAM lesson that urban development has created negative effects on watersheds and that alternative materials can help mitigate them. The video and fact sheet, used in combination, describe how land conservation used in urban planning can also help to solve this issue.

Guiding Questions

1. Can you think of one word to describe a watershed? Explain why you chose that word.
2. A speaker in the video is quoted as saying, “Change is always uncomfortable.” What positive reasons for change can you use to persuade people to consider the use of land conservation as a tool to improve water quality in a watershed?
3. The Health of the Gulf Begins in Your City Limits Fact Sheet states, “It is better to prevent future problems than to be faced with solving them.” Why is being proactive better than being reactive?

Working with Nature:TRWD Rainscapes

Duration: User determined (cc)

Produced by

EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson Extension: Shedding the Traditional, High School

Please Note: To view this content, you will be leaving the EarthX website. It is offered by our educational friends through their website.

Goal

Students will observe a variety of solutions implemented to improve the quality of a watershed. They will discover how they have been incorporated into one setting and how they work to improve stormwater runoff.

Overview

Michelle Wood-Ramirez, TRWD Watershed Coordinator, guides viewers through a discussion on ways Tarrant Regional Water District has incorporated solutions to watershed issues into the land that houses their headquarters in Fort Worth, TX. After viewing the video, students will then tour the storymap on the webpage to learn how each of the solutions works to create both a functional and aesthetically pleasing stormwater infrastructure.

Connections to EarthX STEAM Curriculum Lesson: Shedding the Traditional

In this lesson, students learn how urbanization has disrupted the water quality and flow of watersheds. This video highlights solutions that can be used in the development of green space in an urban setting. The additional video, To Better Our Community, shows how land can be obtained to embed these solutions.

Guiding Questions

1. Rainscapes promote a wide variety of benefits to a watershed. Write a job description for the TRWD Rainscape.
2. In the video, the host states, “Stormwater runoff isn’t a thing to be gotten rid of anymore. It’s utilized as an important feature and function of the landscape.” (1:11) After reviewing the storymap, which strategy do you think provides the most benefit to watershed water quality and why?
3. Rainscapes help to balance the need for urbanization and to keep watersheds safe. Describe a time when you had to compromise on two opposing needs. What was important to remember when successfully coming to terms with the conflicting situations?