TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Aug 28, 2022
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
Resources related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12
If you are not familiar with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), learn about them through the resources in this collection. The SDGs are the 17 global goals adopted by the ...more
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If you are not familiar with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), learn about them through the resources in this collection. The SDGs are the 17 global goals adopted by the United Nations designed to be a blueprint for achieving a more sustainable future for all. In this collection, you will find helpful information about the SDGs and web resources to help you to teach the SDGs in your lessons. There are resources included for all grade levels.
tag(s): climate (84), energy (133), recycling (46), sustainability (50), water (102)
In the Classroom
Help to deepen your students' understanding (and your own) of the Sustainable Development Goals. Share these resources with your colleagues and students by emailing the page or sharing the link from your school web page and in your school newsletter. Find resources to incorporate into your lessons.Earth School - TEDEd
Grades
3 to 12Earth School contains a 30-day nature-focused series of lessons and activities designed for learners of all ages. Each daily Quest includes a video introduction along with a quiz and...more
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Earth School contains a 30-day nature-focused series of lessons and activities designed for learners of all ages. Each daily Quest includes a video introduction along with a quiz and additional discussion and focus activities. Developed in response to school shutdowns due to the Coronavirus, activities are intended to be self-paced and available for students to complete on any device. Lessons are organized into themes. Create a free account to save and edit activities. Students who complete all 30 activities receive a certificate via email. The videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable.
tag(s): agriculture (49), climate (84), climate change (99), design (79), forests (30), oceans (149), recycling (46), remote learning (54), solar energy (34), STEM (297), Teacher Utilities (198), water (102)
In the Classroom
Bookmark this site as a resource for science and nature lessons to supplement current materials in your classroom. Because lessons were created for use in remote learning situations, they are perfect for including during elearning or digital learning days. Create an account and customize lessons to personalize activities to fit your curriculum and students. For example, customize lessons easily to change discussion questions to adapt to student abilities, then share the differentiated lessons to different groups of students. Extend learning by adding links to additional activities such as asking students to write a short blog post using edublogs, reviewed here, or create a cartoon based on the activity's content using ToonyTool, reviewed here. Extend learning for all students using Spotify for Podcastors, reviewed here. Begin by creating a discussion question, then share the topic with students. An idea would be to have small groups of students hold a podcast "conversation" about the topic.Daily Do Playlists - NSTA (National Science Teaching Association)
Grades
K to 12NSTA provides Daily Do Playlists to support educators in guiding students toward understanding scientific ideas through instructional sequences of two or more lessons. Although lessons...more
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NSTA provides Daily Do Playlists to support educators in guiding students toward understanding scientific ideas through instructional sequences of two or more lessons. Although lessons are also supported as stand-alone topics, the goal is to build a "We culture" where students and teachers work together to understand and develop ideas. Lessons include opportunities to engage by making predictions and conducting in-class and at-home experiments. After Daily Do lessons, students are encouraged to make connections to previous activities and explain their thinking. A free account is required to access lessons. If you receive a message that you have exceeded the amount of free content for the month, use the link to download the PDF to view and use any activities. Some of the lessons include a video. If your school blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable.
tag(s): animals (295), biomes (110), climate change (99), colors (64), diseases (67), earthquakes (46), planets (113), plants (146), seasons (37), stars (71), STEM (297), temperature (35), water (102)
In the Classroom
Use the lessons found in the Daily Do Playlists to provide valuable science lessons throughout the school year. Download and save the PDF versions to have available for use at any time. Consider saving all lessons for your grade level in Wakelet, reviewed here, to make them easy to locate. As you complete activities, use IdeaBoardz, reviewed here to enhance learning through a variety of activities. Create columns and ask students to sort information by different categories, create an exit activity and have students add sticky notes sharing their learning or add an image and ask students to label different parts of the image. Have students or groups of students share their understanding of science topics by creating digital books using Book Creator, reviewed here. Include students' research reports, have students record videos explaining the science content and add pictures of students as they complete the experiments and activities.Conservation Station - Learn to Conserve
Grades
5 to 10Conservation Station offers STEM investigations for grades six through nine, exploring ways to conserve water and energy at home. The activities take a look at a variety of topics,...more
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Conservation Station offers STEM investigations for grades six through nine, exploring ways to conserve water and energy at home. The activities take a look at a variety of topics, including calculating your consumption of energy, solar energy, the amount of water needed to produce certain foods, how to conduct an energy audit at school, and much more. Download each activity guide to view lesson procedures and correlations to Next Generation Science Standards.
tag(s): conservation (102), energy (133), solar energy (34), STEM (297), water (102)
In the Classroom
Use these excellent free lessons during STEM units on conservation and energy. Use free tech resources to enhance and extend learning beyond the lesson outlines. As you begin an activity, use Padlet, reviewed here, to curate and share a list of online resources for student use. Include websites, interactive activities, and other information relating to your topic. Share a note-taking tool like Webnotes, reviewed here, with your students to use to take notes or ask questions when reading online articles. They can share the URL of their notes with you as part of their ongoing discussions on the topic. If you find online articles that need additional discussion, use Fiskkit, reviewed here, to create a collaborative discussion of the material. As an ongoing activity, ask students to use Pathbrite, reviewed here, to write about the activities and include videos and pictures of their work. As a final project, ask students to become the teacher by sharing what they learned through their choice of media projects. For example, ask students to use moovly, reviewed here, to create animated explainer videos, create an interactive book using Book Creator, reviewed here, or develop a learning game using Minecraft Education Edition, reviewed here.Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants - Joe Grabowski
Grades
6 to 12Bring science, exploration, and conservation into your classroom through virtual field trips with scientists and leading experts around the globe sponsored on this site. Choose from...more
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Bring science, exploration, and conservation into your classroom through virtual field trips with scientists and leading experts around the globe sponsored on this site. Choose from their many monthly options shared via satellite. Find events by scrolling through offerings on the home page, select from map locations, or use the calendar view to browse by specific dates. Most sessions are about 45 minutes long; however, additional options offer full day and week-long events. Watch events virtually or sign up for a camera spot to interact with the session presenters. Don't worry if you are unable to attend a session, view any previous activities on the site's YouTube channel.
tag(s): animal homes (57), animals (295), conservation (102), ecology (103), explorers (64), oceans (149), space (222), STEM (297), virtual field trips (128), water (102)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of these free sessions to bring real-word conservation and science lessons to your students. There are three ways for your class to enjoy the sessions. The first one is to "Tune in live! Any number of classrooms can watch the events live on YouTube and even send in some questions using the chat sidebar." The second one is "Grab a camera spot so your class can appear on the screen and interact with the speaker. We generally have 5-7 classrooms joining in this way each hangout." The third viewing choice is "Every hangout is recorded directly to YouTube, we have a growing library of past events that can be viewed by classrooms anytime on our channel." See more explanations to the viewing options by clicking the wavy red lines in the upper left corner and then click For Teachers. Begin by watching virtual field trips (viewing option 3), then expand your activities in additional sessions by signing up to participate and interact with the presenters. Prepare for student questioning by brainstorming ideas. Engage students by sharing ideas using an online bulletin board tool like Pinside, reviewed here. Save and share ideas on your class website. As students research information for your upcoming topic, enhance learning by using a collaborative bookmarking tool like Raindrop.io, reviewed here, for all students to share websites with their peers and add comments. Prepare your students further for interactions with researchers by watching videos from previous broadcasts using playposit, reviewed here, to add questions for students into the YouTube videos and encourage students to add comments discussing each issue. Most of the online tools suggested above will help students document their learning during remote or distance learning sessions.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
Aquation - Smithsonian Science Education Center
Grades
7 to 12Play this game to solve the world's water crisis through careful management of resources and responses to global events. Before playing, be sure to check out the tutorial to understand...more
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Play this game to solve the world's water crisis through careful management of resources and responses to global events. Before playing, be sure to check out the tutorial to understand the available options. Your mission is to make water available to all regions through a series of decisions based on cost and research. Be sure to check out the text alternative short story to the game sharing a tale of the importance of water within a small community.
tag(s): conservation (102), DAT device agnostic tool (147), game based learning (205), recycling (46), water (102), weather (160)
In the Classroom
Include this activity with any unit on the environment, water cycles, or weather. Extend this activity further to learn more about water conservation in your community. Ask students to take pictures around the school or at home showing the inefficient use of water. Use PhotoCollage, reviewed here, and have students create a collage of their images to use as a starting point for research. Ask students to enhance their learning and upload their collage to a blog and write analyzing and sharing ideas for water conversation based on their collage. Use a blog tool such as edublog, reviewed here. Use Nearpod, reviewed here, to create a diferentiated learning for your students for your entire unit. Add videos, quizzes, embed this game and add all the information for students to follow. Nearpod includes options for differentiation for different interests or ability levels of your students. Ask older students to enhance their learning and create their own Learning Path to demonstrate and share learning throughout the unit.EarthEcho International - Philippe Cousteau Jr.
Grades
6 to 12EarthEcho International offers a collection of videos, lesson plans, and other materials designed to support high-quality classroom experiences and the exploration and protection of...more
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EarthEcho International offers a collection of videos, lesson plans, and other materials designed to support high-quality classroom experiences and the exploration and protection of natural resources (scroll to the bottom of the page and find Educator Resources in the right column). Many are correlated to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards. Find and choose resources by filtering program offerings, grade levels, and type of activity. Program offerings include topics such as rethinking waste, water quality, energy, marine debris, and much more. Register with your email address for free access to materials.
In addition to teaching materials, follow past EarthEcho expeditions with updates from the field. If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable.
In addition to teaching materials, follow past EarthEcho expeditions with updates from the field. If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable.
tag(s): environment (252), oceans (149), recycling (46), water (102)
In the Classroom
Create a link on classroom computers and share on your class website for students to explore expeditions on their own. To enhance student's learning ask them to complete one of the following: create an annotated image including text boxes and related links using a tool such as Google Drawings, reviewed here to demonstrate information found on EarthEcho, make a word cloud of the important terms they learn from this site using a tool such as WordItOut, reviewed here, or develop maps of explorations using MapHub, reviewed here. Students can add icons, URLs, text, images, and location stops with Map Hub!Something Fishy - Inland Fisheries Ireland
Grades
4 to 6Something Fishy educates about water quality, fish, and the environment. Choose from the children's portion of the site or the section for teachers and parents. Children participate...more
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Something Fishy educates about water quality, fish, and the environment. Choose from the children's portion of the site or the section for teachers and parents. Children participate in a series of eight lessons beginning with "Water, Water, Everywhere" through "Will There Be Any Left For Me?" Lessons include short stories and slideshows. Teachers and Parents can download a teaching manual and work cards along with an overview and lesson plan for each activity.
tag(s): environment (252), fish (18), oceans (149), pollution (52), resources (84), rivers (16), water (102), water cycle (22)
In the Classroom
The children's activities are excellent for use on an interactive whiteboard or projector. View and discuss the lessons together as part of your environmental unit or lessons on the water cycle. Have students view lessons on classroom computers on their own then summarize learning using a talking avatar with a photo or other image (legally permitted to be reproduced). The avatars can be used to explain water quality topics found on the site. Use a site such as Blabberize, reviewed here, for the talking avatars.UN Water - United Nations Development Programme
Grades
4 to 12Water is a basic human need and also a human right. Water and Sanitation is Sustainable Development Goal (SD) 6. Read about this goal and the UN's progress towards ...more
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Water is a basic human need and also a human right. Water and Sanitation is Sustainable Development Goal (SD) 6. Read about this goal and the UN's progress towards it. Explore the statistics, controversies, and issues concerning water use around the globe. Click the "Water Facts" tab to learn important information about Water Ecosystems, Human Rights, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Climate Change, Quality and Waste Water, Scarcity, and more.
tag(s): climate change (99), conservation (102), earth (184), earth day (60), pollution (52), resources (84), sustainability (50), water (102)
In the Classroom
Identify similarities and differences in water issues around the globe. Have cooperative learning groups create online Venn Diagrams comparing two distinct areas and their water issues. Use an online tool such as Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here.Students can choose an area or topic of interest either individually or as a group. Look at water issues that many students may not be aware of including water quality and distribution. Create a campaign to increase water awareness that may or may not coincide with world water week (or day.) Have students create a video or podcast sharing their campaigns. For podcasts, use a site such as podOmatic, reviewed here. If creating videos, use a tool like FlexClip, reviewed here, where you can add music and the computer microphone to make comments, explain, etc. Share them on a site such as TeacherTube, reviewed here. Use these resources to determine how to help other countries in their need for clean water and how everyone can conserve.
Water on the web - Water on the web
Grades
9 to 12Understand, investigate, and solve environmental problems related to water. Use "Basic Science" for High School students to investigate through activities using technologies on the...more
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Understand, investigate, and solve environmental problems related to water. Use "Basic Science" for High School students to investigate through activities using technologies on the website. Use activities divided into sections: Teacher (lesson plans) and Student ("Studying" lessons and "Investigating" lessons.) Complete the "Water Science" water resource management course for undergraduates as a two semester course. Use lake and stream water quality data monitored continually throughout Minnesota and other participating areas. View the data as well as information about the area, its uses, and watershed characteristics. Manipulate data characteristics to customize information needed to study in the "Data" section of the website. Use the "Understanding" section of the site to view reference materials and background information for better understanding of water issues, techniques, and sampling of data or the "Resources" section for tutorials and other references.
In the Classroom
Use the site to view data from a specific lake or stream, or compare between several different lakes or streams. Identify issues that change data and research the issues and areas of the World they impact. Follow up investigations with a trip to a water treatment center or with actual data collection in a nearby lake or stream. Create podcasts, Anchor, reviewed here, videos, moovly, reviewed here, website or wiki pages Site 123, reviewed here, (or any traditional media) to share information learned about water quality. View data as an inquiry activity for students questions and then focus research on finding and sharing answers. Culminate the research in April in time for Earth Day as students share their findings with others in the community.
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Polluted Runoff (Nonpoint Source Pollution) Kids Page - US EPA Office of Water
Grades
2 to 8Help your elementary and middle school students learn about water quality and conservation - and what human behaviors affect them. Explore run-off, home and garden habits, aquatic life,...more
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Help your elementary and middle school students learn about water quality and conservation - and what human behaviors affect them. Explore run-off, home and garden habits, aquatic life, terminology, and more in these simple interactive pages. If it's about water, you can find it here, along with activities to help your students understand. One link requires purchase of a CD, but there is plenty to do without spending money! Middle school activities include the activity sheets in PDF format.
tag(s): conservation (102), earth (184), earth day (60), environment (252), water (102)
In the Classroom
Share these activities as part of Earth Day plans or whenever you study about water and pollution. Be sure to include the link on your teacher web page so students can share the ideas at home, as well.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
Water Science for Schools - US Government
Grades
4 to 12The EPA created this collection of resources dealing with water cycles, water purification, and water availability. It includes web resources, sample experiments, and explanations of...more
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The EPA created this collection of resources dealing with water cycles, water purification, and water availability. It includes web resources, sample experiments, and explanations of water quality issues. Each topic has several areas to explore and learn from.
tag(s): agriculture (49), conservation (102), ecosystems (83), environment (252), water (102)
In the Classroom
Start with Water Basics, and find lots of topics and activities. Review the water cycle on your interactive whiteboard or with a projector. Engage your students with one of the interactive activities. Once your students have the basics, enhance learning by having them choose a topic as a source for a multimedia project to present what they learned using Genially, reviewed here. With Genially students can insert maps, surveys, video, audio and more. Teachers will likely want to sort through the material before suggesting it to their students.Lead Contamination In Our Environment - Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Grades
5 to 8Use this unit or parts of it to help students to understand the threat of lead in our environment and use hands-on activities to enhance critical thinking. ...more
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Use this unit or parts of it to help students to understand the threat of lead in our environment and use hands-on activities to enhance critical thinking.
tag(s): conservation (102), environment (252), pollution (52)