Alliance to Save Energy: How Big is Your Carbon Footprint?
During Mathematics Awareness Month, use this lesson plan to show your students how mathematics can further the understanding of sustainability, this year’s theme. The primary objective of the lesson is for students to understand the impact of the choices they make in terms of diet, energy consumption, and other resource uses after calculating how many Earths would be necessary to support the entire earth’s population in the manner in which your students are accustomed to living. They also practice mean, median, mode, and standard deviation as they work with the set of data they accumulate. Possible discussion questions and extensions for the lesson are provided.
http://www.ase.org/Carbon%20FootPrint%20Lesson%20Plan
TeachEngineering: Acid (and Base) Rainbows
What a way to get kids excited about science and experimentation–watching for color changes in several different test materials. The lesson plans from TeachEngineering are so detailed and cover every eventuality that there is no reason not to use them often. For this lesson you’ll find objectives, a materials list, reasons for students to understand acid and base, the procedure, as well as worksheets to print off for the many measurements. The extension activities encourage even more critical thinking, and the lesson plan gives ways of scaling down the lesson for younger students. Kids need lots of hands-on science, and this lesson plan allows you to use your classroom as a lab.
http://www.teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=http://www.teachengineering.com/collection/cub_/activities/cub_air/cub_air_lesson06_activity1.xml