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Earth System Science Unit Labs

Provided by: TERC |Published on: May 24, 2024

Lesson Plans

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Synopsis

This series of six student labs explores global systems and the connections and interactions between water, land, air, and life on local, regional, and global scales.
Students will explore and annotate a local area, understand how this area fits within the larger region, differentiate between open and closed systems, simulate system interactions, and look at data from the interacting systems.

Related Teaching Resources

Subjects: Biology, Earth and Space Sciences

Authors: TERC and Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College (SERC)

Region: United States

Languages: English

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Teaching Materials

Positives

The hands-on activities dealing with a local study site help students stay focused and engaged.
The resource does a great job of defining unknown terms for students.

Prerequisites

To access educator-only materials, such as suggested answers for the questions, teachers will need to enter their email and complete a short form.
Students should understand the water cycle.
Students will need an internet connection.
In Lab 4, students should skip Part C, as it is a repeat of Lab 3's Part C.
The link to the Water Cycle Game in Lab 5 takes the user to a different landing page in NOAA. Teachers can use this water cycle board game from NOAA.

Differentiation & Implementation

If students are not in a natural area, can't travel to one, or it is too hot or cold to be outside, they can use a virtual tour video of a nearby natural space and make observations about what is present there. Many of these are available on YouTube.
Art students can make artistic representations of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, or pedosphere using a medium of their choice.
During the annotation activity in the second lab, teachers may want to direct students with large handwriting to put numbers on their photos corresponding to annotations on a separate page right away to avoid frustration and make it easy for all students to read all annotations.
Teachers can connect the global cycling of water and air to pollution and how polluting one watershed can create impacts on a global scale.
To make language arts connections, teachers can follow Lab 5 where students see the Blue Marble image of earth with this poetry lesson based on Amanda Gorman's poem inspired by the Earthrise image of earth.

Scientist Notes

Teaching Tips

Standards

Resource Type and Format

About the Partner Provider

Technical Education Research Centers (TERC)

Technical Education Research Centers (TERC) is an independent research-based nonprofit organization. They are dedicated to inspiring and engaging learners through stimulating research, materials and tool development, and professional development.

Related Teaching Resources

All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.