Habitat Earth in the Classroom (RR)
Browse a rich array of educational resources from the award-winning show, Habitat Earth.
Real-time air traffic reveals modern travel patterns occurring on timescales far more rapid than species migration in the natural world. Illustrating flights taken over two days in September 2013, this clip demonstrates the frequency of plane flights arriving at and departing from airports worldwide.
Planes, Trains, or Bicycles: Being a Low-impact Traveler
The connectivity of regions around the globe made possible by air travel and other transportation modes comes with environmental costs, such as increased carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. In this activity, students will be transformed into strategically low-impact world travelers.
Next Generation Science Standards Disciplinary Core Ideas
California's Environmental Principles and Concepts
"How Quickly do Ships Cross the Ocean and How Many Planes Are in the Sky are great videos to show modern transportation. Students get a great visual on human impact by seeing all of those lights and what they represent. The habitat earth video is a great overview that ties in many subjects and provides a scaffold for students to build content on. Planes, trains or bicycles ties in with our unit on Human Impact and Climate Change." -6th Grade Science Teacher from Stockton, CA
"I would love to use some of the videos and guiding questions as a way to provide connections to real-world phenomenon." -High School Life and Physical Science Student Teacher from Berkeley, CA
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Visualizations based on aggregated data provide the unique opportunity to engage your students in various Science Practices highlighted in the Next Generation Science Standards, including asking questions, analyzing and interpreting data, and constructing explanations. As an example, Academy educators developed sample activities such as this one and this one.
Fossil Fuels (grades 4-8)
In these two quick activities, students will explore two consequences of burning fossil fuels: air pollution and the greenhouse effect.
Carbon Cycle Role-Play (grades 4-12)
How does the finite amount of carbon on this planet move around in the environment, from one place to another? How do the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact? In this active demonstration, students will model the carbon cycle, and consider way in which human actions play a role.
Carbon Cycle Poster (grades 4-12)
Working in groups, students can create simple illustrations of how carbon flows between the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and lithosphere. Use the provided materials to tell the story of how human activity can contribute to global climate change.
Science News: Visualizing Global Travel
How do animators create clips such as this one? With just numbers, GPS coordinates, spreadsheets, and a few still images!
Tiny Bird, Long Migration
Scientists confirmed that the blackpool warbler—a tiny, 12-gram bird—can migrate incredibly large distances, and make the trip almost entirely over the open ocean.
Science News: Getting to Carbon Negative
This article argues that we could actually go carbon negative by adopting methods that include bioenergy with carbon capture, afforestation, wetland restoration, and improved land-use management.
Real Time Air Traffic
planefinder.net
Browse a rich array of educational resources from the award-winning show, Habitat Earth.
Learn the benefit of using videos in the classroom, and browse resources to help you get started.
Our collection of educational videos will help your students visualize data and understand scientific concepts.
Environmental Literacy Initiative, major funding provided by
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