ConEd-Field-Investigations

1. Pacific Education Institute Toolkit

PEI recently created multiple guides as part of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Conservation Education Strategy Toolkit. These include the Project Based Learning Model, Field Investigations, Fostering Outdoor Observation Skills, Sustainable Tomorrow, Landscape Investigation Guidelines and Schoolyard Biodiversity Investigation Educator Guide. These guides are free to download! Contact PEI to find out more about how they can work with you through professional development opportunities.
http://www.pacificeducationinstitute.com

LaMotteWaterQualityEducator2. From LaMotte: The Water Quality Educator

Teach your students and volunteer monitors all about Natural Water Quality Monitoring. Use this CD to plan and implement a special long-term service project, community outreach program, environmental course, and classroom and field trip pre-lab activity to test water quality in rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, estuaries, and other natural bodies of water.
http://lamotte.com/component/option,com_pages/lang,en/mid,/page,182/task,item

ChristopherColumbusFdn

3. Christopher Columbus Awards

The Christopher Columbus Awards for Middle School Students is a community-based STEM program. Students work in teams of three to four, with an adult coach, to identify a problem in their community and apply the scientific method to create an innovative solution to that problem. The deadline for submission is February 4, 2013.
http://www.christophercolumbusawards.com/

Superstorm Sandy

4. Climate Change Curriculum

Stanford University has developed climate change curriculum units for middle and high school students. The lesson plans include both teacher-centered and student-centered activities with lectures based on provided slideshows, teacher-led demonstrations, student-led investigations, and group analysis of data. Underlying these activities is a philosophy of learning by inquiry as well as justifying claims with evidence.
https://pangea.stanford.edu/programs/outreach/climatechange/

SchoolyardHabitatProject

5. PBLU Schoolyard Habitat Project

The PBLU Schoolyard Habitat Project is a collaboration between the Buck Institute for Education, the Pacific Education Institute, and the National Environmental Education Foundation. In the Schoolyard Habitat Project students become engaged learners as they research, design and implement a plan to enhance their school campus by creating wildlife habitat, planting native plants or even removing weeds and invasive plants from the school grounds. Elementary teachers are encouraged to participate in either the summer or fall courses. A Schoolyard Habitat Project for secondary teachers will be available in time for the fall course dates. Sign up to take a free series of online classes designed to walk you through the PBL essentials. Learn how to apply PBL to a capstone project and engage students in practicing math and language arts skills while enhancing the wildlife habitat of their school campus through low or no cost strategies!
http://www.pblu.org/projects/schoolyard-habitat-project