Academic Musings & Tech for Learning

A joint project of Discovery Education & WM Waste Management, Think Green has a very comprehensive set of resources for K-8 classrooms, and some for 9-12 as well, online. Included are lesson plans, hands-on activities, videos, interactive activities and some great classroom display materials. All of these are free, and no registration is required.

The interactive activity, Energy Consumption has links to worksheets, explains BTU’s and students calculate and compare costs of using different fuels and insulation to heat and cool a home in San Francisco, Dallas and Minnesota. There are many activities linked to this interactive.

Future Power includes a virtual lab. Links to videos and articles are embedded in the activity. Students compare the costs and CO2 emissions of natural gas and coal mixtures. Unfortunately the lab doesn’t include other fuel options, but perhaps students can investigate those as well. It is still  a very useful activity and challenges students to plan, experiment and report their findings.

How to Light Up a Room is another virtual lab that studies the effect of different window coverings on temperature. Students can run the experiments, compare and chart data.

Power Up is a fairly simple interactive activity where students complete a pie chart that identifies how much electrical energy is provided by different fuel sources in the US. Written information is provided for each source (grades 5 +). Mineral Resources – Recycling Aluminum is a one-session interactive good for lower grades.

Overall this is an exceptional collection of resources that can used to enrich learning in science and other disciplines.