Advanced Learners

The Water Cycle

• Lesson: The National Repository of Online Courses has a quick intro into the Water Cycle in its AP Environmental Science course. See Unit 1, Chapter 2, Lesson 7.
• Lesson: Good example of a lesson that links the water, nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus cycles.

Rivers and Ecosystems

• Lesson: The Berkeley Ecology Center’s Terrain for Schools (TFS) also has a unit on groundwater and saltwater intrusion.
• Lab: Related to the above is a lesson on groundwater plumes that works great in a chemistry classroom.
• Lesson: The National Repository of Online Courses discusses different types of water pollutants in their AP Environmental Science course. See Unit 4, Chapter 7, Lessons 78.

Rivers and People

• Lesson: A language-arts course by National Geographic Xpeditions on the Kissimmee River, Florida, and the larger impacts of human actions.
• Lesson: An NSF lesson plan that allows students to role-play different stakeholders involved in a dam removal project on the lower Snake River.

Protecting River Resources

• Lesson: A set of lesson plans using the National Geographic web resources that explore conservation.
• Lesson: TFS has a social studies unit on watershed management that allows students to seek solutions that recognize the interconnectedness of water and forests.
• Discussion: The TFS offers a discussion-based unit on water rights, privatization, and resource management solutions, which can be individualized to the local school or community.
• Discussion: A great social studies unit to do in conjunction with the above is the unit on water allocation in real-world contexts.
• Lesson: The National Repository of Online Courses discusses different types of water resource management in their AP Environmental Science course. See Unit 3, Chapter 9, Lessons 43-44.