Environmental Science Experiments

ACOS 2015: Students gain an understanding of the characteristics of aquatic ecosystems with emphasis on biodiversity, economic stability, and human recreation and argue the importance of protecting them.

ACOS 2015: Students will evaluate “macroinvertebrate samples” to construct a biological index of water quality in a hypothetical watershed.

ACOS 2015:  Students will: Explore possible situations that can cause changes to occur in an ecosystem. Work cooperatively in a group to examine possible changes to the ecosystem on a school campus. Collect and use evidence to evaluate how physical change can affect plant life. Engage in argument from collected evidence to evaluate how change affects an ecosystem. Research examples of ecosystem disturbances to present to the class.  

ACOS 2015: Students will understand what carbon is and where it can be found at a global scale • Be able to describe how carbon in the form of CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere and why that matters.

ACOS 2105:   Students will analyze graphical information, engage in argument from evidence, and investigate anthropogenic factors impacting global climate change. 

ACOS 2015: Students learn how lichens can be used as indicators of air pollution.

ACOS 2015: This lab covers the flow of energy within an ecosystem, including food chains, food webs, biomass pyramids, and the ten percent law.

ACOS 2015: Students will compare the characterization of soils from different locations, test soil fertility, measure the pH of various soils, and design a solution to improve the quality of a soil profile that has been compromised by man-made causes or natural disasters based on their understanding of a healthy soil profile. 

ACOS 2015: Students will evaluate the quality of various water samples, simulate runoff into water sources from a watershed, identify pollutants from point and non-point sources, research the impact of human activities on the presence of pollutants in their own water source, understand relationships between land use and water quality, and propose solutions for clean water.

ACOS 2015: Students will understand what phosphorus is and where it can be found, model the cycling of phosphorus through the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere, and produce a diagram of a phosphorus cycle.

ACOS 2015: The purpose of this activity is to learn that trees contain carbon, that this carbon comes from CO2 in the atmosphere, and therefore trees could be used to remove and store large amounts of carbon, helping to reverse climate change.