Hurricanes are powerful storms that can cause devastating damage when they hit the shore. How is it that these storms grow to such impressive sizes? This lesson plan teaches students about how hurricanes form and then probes students to think about how changing conditions are affecting hurricane patterns.

Coastal erosion is a natural process that sweeps large sections of land out to sea. Students will learn about how this process occurs and then explain how human activity can increase erosion risk. They will then determine how to reduce these risks, understanding both the advantages and disadvantages of various options. Students will also look a beach elevation data and make predictions on how vulnerable they are to erosion.

Charting your course on the high seas is a skill required of all seafarers since the beginning of ocean exploration. In this lesson, students will use nautical charts to determine the distance between locations. They will also identify obstacles and features that can aid in navigation.

This group of lesson plans focuses on primary production in the ocean via photosynthesizers, like plankton and algae. Students will learn what factors limit primary productivity in the ocean and about other ways ocean organisms produce energy (i.e. chemosynthesis). 

In this activity, students will be able to identify major taxa that are dominant in deep benthic communities of the Arctic Ocean. Given distribution data for major taxa in different Arctic benthic communities, students will be able to identify patterns in the distribution of these taxa and infer plausible reasons for these patterns.

In this activity, students will be able to describe how ratios of stable nitrogen isotopes can be used to study trophic relationships between marine organisms, make inferences about trophic relationships between organisms and habitats, and compare and contrast organisms in sea ice, pelagic, and benthic communities in terms of feeding strategies and consequent stable nitrogen isotope ratios.

In this activity, students will be able to identify and explain at least three lines of evidence that suggest the Arctic climate is changing, identify and discuss at least three social, three economic and three environmental consequences expected as a result of Arctic climate change, identify at least three climate-related issues of concern to Arctic indigenous peoples, and identify at least three ways in which Arctic climate change is likely to affect the rest of the Earth’s ecosystems.

In this activity, students will be able to identify the natural processes that produce methane, describe where methane deposits are located in the Arctic region, explain how warmer climates may affect Arctic methane deposits, explain how the release of large volumes of methane might affect Earth’s climate, and describe how methane releases may have contributed to mass extinction events in Earth’s geologic history.

Students will describe how climate change is affecting sea ice, vegetation, and glaciers in the Arctic region, explain how changes in the Arctic climate can produce global impacts, and will be able to provide three examples of such impacts. Students will also explain how a given impact resulting from climate change may be considered ‘positive’ as well as ‘negative’, and will be able to provide at least one example of each. Hands-on activity: Make a photocube showing changes in glaciers.

This lesson investigates how sea ice is critical to the plants and animals that live in the Arctic. Students will learn key terms, including albedo, cryosphere, and forcings. They will also learn about how carbon emissions, sea ice, and food webs are interconnected.