Pathway 6:
Land, Air, and the Natural World
* Also U.N. Sustainable Development Goal #13: Climate Action Quality Education Read More
Days to Celebrate in February:
2nd: World Wetlands Day
15th: World Pangolin Day
27th: International Polar Bear Day
Guides and Curricula
4-H Outdoor and Environment Curricula – Includes specific curricula such as Butterfly, Entomology, Forestry, Gardening, Exploring your Environment, and Backyards and Beyond
John Muir Lesson Plans – Learning about John Muir’s life can serve as a launching pad to environmental studies from a variety of perspectives. Botany, geology, history, geography, language arts, visual arts, and more can be inspired by John Muir, as we discover that, as John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
Indoor Air Pollution – Students will learn about indoor air pollutants the types and legal concentrations and affects on human health. The students will also determine the pathway for the formation of radon
ViewFinders – An online interactive website that teachers students K-5 about visual pollution and its effects on a person’s daily life and character of a city.
U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
UN SDG: Learn Environmental SDG Indicators – This course provides an overview of the importance of monitoring the environmental dimension of development, the linkage with existing statistical frameworks and how to use environment statistics in decision making.
Resources for Teaching about Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice
Apps
Earth Viewer – What did Earth’s continents and oceans look like 250 million years ago, or even 1 billion years ago? What do we know about the climate back when our planet formed?
Plants by Tinybop – Unearth the secrets of the green kingdom! Explore the forest, desert, and grasslands in this interactive diorama of the world’s biomes. Conduct the seasons and the weather, ignite a wildfire, and burrow with barking critters.
Star Tracker for Kids – Just hold up and point the device to the sky and have fun! You can see any stars, constellations and deep sky objects you are watching in reality.
Tick Bait’s Universe – With this app, kids (and kids at heart) can easily zoom in and out to explore the universe. They can zoom up to see Earth’s atmosphere, our solar system, galaxies and beyond. They can also zoom down into the microscopic world to explore bacteria, viruses, DNA, atoms, protons, and beyond.
Games
Universe Sandbox – Spawn massive stars, launch asteroids, and manipulate gravity with just a few clicks.
Choose Our Future – This game shows how everyday choices add up.
Food Choices For A Healthy Planet
Videos
The Cost of Coal – When mining companies blow up West Virginia mountains to get at the coal beneath, streams get filled, drinking water gets contaminated, and whole towns disappear
A Community of Choices – The above video, Community of Choices, was produced by Scenic America and the Dunn Foundation and narrated by former Scenic America President Edward McMahon. In the video you will learn about all the different choices and options that communities face when deciding how they want to look, and how those choices can affect a community’s quality of life and prosperity in the long run.
Useful Links
Watershed Course – National Geographic FLOW Education: Facilitating Learning through Outdoor Watershed Education
NOAA: Use Real-Time Ocean Data to Explore the Environment
NASA: Interactive Lessons about Space, Earth, Solar System and Universe; Lessons from Astronauts about Living in Space
What Happens In Your Body When You Breathe Dirty Air?
How Animal Agriculture is Accelerating Global Deforestation
How Does Overpopulation Affect Sustainability? Challenges and Solutions