Teaching Resources
Teaching environmental issues in your classroom is a critical component of providing your students a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience. Discover a wealth Chesapeake Bay related books, multimedia, curriculum guides, individual lesson plans and online data sources.
Begin by choosing the criteria for your search. It is only necessary to include the criteria you wish to use to limit your search. The more specific your search the more focused and narrow the results.
If you know of a great teaching resource that is not included in the Bay Backpack please let us know by suggesting a resource.
Subject
All Subjects- Art
- Language Arts
- Mathematics
- Science
- Social Studies
- Technology
Level
- All Levels
- Early Learning
- Elementary School
- Middle School
- High School
Type
Alignment
Keywords
- All Keywords
- acid rain
- adaptation
- African American
- agriculture
- air pollution and fossil fuels
- aquatic grass SAV
- beaver
- biodiversity
- blue crab
- boats, canoes and kayaks
- climate change
- culture and watermen
- development
- dissolved oxygen
- Drinking Water
- economics
- ecosystem and biomes
- erosion
- experiments and investigations
- fish
- food web
- forest
- geocaching (GIS/GPS)
- Geography
- green development
- habitat and niche
- identification
- invasive species
- John Smith and colonial times
- land use
- litter, trash and recycling
- Native American
- nitrogen and carbon cycle
- non-point source
- orienteering
- Outdoor Activity
- oyster
- photosynthesis
- point source
- pollution
- population growth
- predator prey relationships
- renewable resource
- restoration
- salinity
- schoolyard habitat
- sediment, soil and rocks
- smart growth
- stormwater
- stream study
- student action
- Temperature
- transportation
- Underground Railroad
- water and energy conservation
- water cycle and movement
- water quality
- water testing
- watershed
- weather
- wetland
- wildlife
Chesapeake Bay FieldScope Activity: Investigating Nutrient and Sediment Pollution
Students investigate the sources of nutrient and sediment pollution in a sub-watershed of the Chesapeake Bay. Students will be able to identify the sources of nutrient and sediment pollution in a watershed, read pie charts and relate them to geographic areas on a map, and consider the effects of different land uses on the watershed and estuary ecosystem
Subject(s):
Science, Technology
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities, Multimedia, Data, Posters and Maps
Level(s):
Middle School, High School
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution, watershed, sediment, soil and rocks, water quality
Virginia's Natural Resource Education Guide: Virginia's Minerals & Energy Resources
This document contains seven pages of background information for your students, eight pages of charts, graphs, and tables, and an Energy in the Balance lesson plan. The cooperative activity included in this packet encourages students to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the major energy sources identified in the literature through a series of rating activities.
Subject(s):
Science, Social Studies
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities, Data
Level(s):
Elementary School, Middle School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
Virginia
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, air pollution and fossil fuels, water and energy conservation, renewable resource
Pennsylvania Land Choices - An Educational Guide
Pennsylvania Land Choices is a national recognized award winning educational program developed by the DCNR State Parks to provide professional development for teachers, conservation and community leaders to understand the role of the citizen and local communities in making decisions that benefit conservation and sustainable community character. The program connects social studies and science in the 6 – 12 grades through place-based service learning, conservation and local government. The activities provide inquiry-based opportunities and hand-on activities that encourage service learning for the benefit of students and their community. Lessons are aligned to the Pennsylvania state academic standards and feature SAS protocols.
Subject(s):
Science, Social Studies
Type(s):
Curriculum Guide, Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
Middle School, High School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
Pennsylvania
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution, non-point source, water cycle and movement, population growth, wetland, land use, watershed, agriculture, development, stormwater, air pollution and fossil fuels, water and energy conservation, erosion, green development, transportation, water quality, wildlife, economics, student action
EPA - Household Emissions Calculator
You can use the following online calculator with your students to get a rough “ballpark” estimate of their personal or family’s greenhouse gas emissions, and explore the impact of taking various actions to reduce emissions. The calculator is broken into three sections:
Section 1: Estimate your current total household emissions.
Section 2: Explore actions you can take to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, and waste disposal costs.
Section 3: See how much you can save (in dollars and emissions) by taking the actions you chose in Section 2.
Subject(s):
Science
Type(s):
Data
Level(s):
High School
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, climate change
Estuaries 101 Curriculum - Nutrients in an Estuary
In this activity, students model estuaries, artificially
enriching both fresh and salt water samples with
different amounts of nutrients and observing the growth of algae over a several weeks. They relate their results to the phenomenon of algae blooms in estuaries. They then analyze data for different sites at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve(GTMNERR) in Florida to discover the relationships between nitrogen, chlorophyll, and dissolved oxygen. Finally, they study how nutrients cycle through an estuary and suggest recommendations for reducing nutrient inputs to estuary waters.
Subject(s):
Mathematics, Science
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
High School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
National Science Education
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution, point source, non-point source, photosynthesis, development, stormwater, water quality, dissolved oxygen
Nitrogen Footprint Calculator
Most people are aware of the dangers of releasing CO2 into the environment, but do your students know that it can be just as dangerous to release too much nitrogen? Humans use nitrogen through agriculture, energy use, resource consumption and more, but once it is lost, nitrogen can cascade through the environment and cause smog, acid rain, forest dieback, coastal “dead zones,” biodiversity loss, stratospheric ozone depletion and an enhanced greenhouse effect. The Nitrogen Footprint Calculator, created by the University of Maryland and University of Virginia, measures the amount of reactive nitrogen released to the environment as a result of human activities. Incorporate this free, online tool into high school lessons about the nitrogen cycle, eutrophication, human impacts on the environment, the Chesapeake Bay, and more.
Subject(s):
Mathematics, Science
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities, Multimedia
Level(s):
High School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
National Science Education
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, acid rain, aquatic grass SAV, water quality, dissolved oxygen
Effect of Nutrients in the Bay Graphic
An excellent overhead describing the harmful effects of nutrients in the Bay and the process of eutrophication.
Subject(s):
Science
Type(s):
Multimedia
Level(s):
High School
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution, water quality
Total Nitrogen Loads to the Bay and Underwater Grasses Graph
Learn how nitrogen pollution influences the amount of aquatic grass in the Chesapeake Bay. This bar graph shows acres of aquatic grass vs pounds of nitrogen pollution from 1989 - 2003.
Subject(s):
Science
Type(s):
Multimedia, Data
Level(s):
Middle School, High School
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution, aquatic grass SAV
Nitrate Levels in Wells Lesson
This lesson describes a community project for students to measure nitrate-nitrogen levels in well water. Students will perform water quality tests and create a map of nitrate levels in well water for the local area.
Subject(s):
Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Technology
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
High School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
Virginia
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, stream study
Natural Laboratories Lesson
Students will learn how estuarine research reserves are used as natural laboratories to improve our understanding of estuarine systems. Students will learn how a biological organism can be used to detect excess nutrient inputs to estuaries and interpret technical data to make predictions about the distribution of nutrients in specific estuaries.
Subject(s):
Science
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
High School
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution
The Dead Zone Lesson
A lesson plan focusing on the Gulf of Mexico's "Dead Zone" in which students will explain how nutrient enrichment in aquatic habitats can result in hypoxic (low oxygen) or anoxic (no oxygen) conditions.
Subject(s):
Science
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
High School
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, water quality, wildlife
Eyes on Harmful Algal Blooms Lesson
This Eyes on the Bay lesson teachers students about algal blooms. Students will describe harmful algae and their distribution in the Bay and then apply what they learned to identify ways to lessen algal growth.
Subject(s):
Science, Social Studies
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
Middle School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
Maryland
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution
Excuse Me, Is This the Way to the Drainpipe Lesson
Students learn where drinking water comes from and how waste water is disposed of.
Subject(s):
Science
Type(s):
Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
Elementary School, Middle School, High School
Keywords:
nitrogen and carbon cycle, pollution, point source
