External Educator Resources
Looking for additional resources to spice up your lesson planning? Look no further! We are posting free external resources from our previous STEM on Tap events for educators to access.
Below are resources that are sorted by topic from experts in the field. If you're interested in attending one of our STEM on Tap events in the future, click here to learn more and sign up!
LESSON PLANS
“’Beeting’ Icy Roads” from the American Chemical Society
Subject area(s): Chemistry, Environmental Science
“Salt and Living Things” from the American Museum of Natural History
Subject area(s): Biology, Environmental Science
“Salty Streams” by Cary Institute
Subject area(s): Earth Science, Environmental Science, Math
WATER: A Statewide Inquiry Experience (2019-2024)
Subject area(s): Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Math
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oNtHKCYweaOfK2rhNq5Pc9vqWANA4j0o/view
https://dpi.wi.gov/science/water
“Why Salt the Roads?”
Subject area(s): Chemistry, Environmental Science
https://www.digitalwish.com/dw/digitalwish/view_lesson_plans?id=8039
“Wisconsin Salt Wise”
Subject area(s): Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science
https://www.wisaltwise.com/Take-Action/Teacher-Resources
ARTICLES + ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
General information on chlorides from MN Pollution Control Agency
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/pollutants-and-contaminants/chloride
Road salt accumulation in the Twin Cities metro
https://cse.umn.edu/college/feature-stories/road-salt-accumulates-metro-area-waters-new-study-finds
MPR story on chloride impairments of Minnesota waterways
MPR story on Low Salt Design
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/01/31/how-rethinking-design-could-reduce-the-need-for-road-salt
Eden Prairie’s Webpage
Lessons
Sickle Cell Storyline - HHMI
“Lesson 7: How do fibers cause red blood cells to sickle?” is one lesson from a larger, curriculum-spanning “storyline” from HHMI about sickle cell disease. It’s written for AP and IB Biology, but could be adapted to other courses.
https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/sickle-cell-disease-storyline
Exploring Genetics Through Genetics Disorders - Genetic Science Learning Center at University of Utah Genetic Science Learning Center
Aligned to the NGSS, this unit uses several different genetic disorders to foster learning about alleles, inheritance, and gene expression.
https://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/genetics/
“An escape room increases interest and knowledge of the genetic counseling career among diverse students” - Sleckman et al.
This paper describes (and includes a link to) a study of using an escape room to introduce students to careers in genetic counseling.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12323292/#jgc470091-sec-0005
Additional Resources
- Learn more about genetic counseling: https://tinyurl.com/52t3hbyw
- Learn more about becoming a GC: https://www.nsgc.org/BecomeaGC
- Genetic counseling information resources: https://www.mygenecounsel.com/genetic-counseling-toolkit-for-students/
- Genetics focused classroom activities:
Motus Wildlife Tracking Systems: https://motus.org/.
Audubon Adventures is an environmental education curriculum product created by the National Audubon Society for grades 3 - 5. Developed by professional environmental educators, Audubon Adventures presents standards-based science content about birds, wildlife, and their habitats. https://www.audubonadventures.org/Teach_Welcome.htm
Community Science is a cornerstone of what Audubon does. They have a number of initiatives around bird counts and climate change. https://www.audubon.org/community-science
Cornell Bird Labs is a leader in birds and birding. https://www.allaboutbirds.org
- They developed and maintains the wonderful FREE birding app Merlin. www.merlin.allaboutbirds.org
- They host the Bird Academy Play Lab, which has teacher resources to go with the games. https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/learning-games/
- They have some very practical tips about starting a bird(ing) club. https://www.birds.cornell.edu/k12/starting-a-bird-club/
- And an eBird Essentials Course: https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/product/ebird-essentials/
Minnesota State Parks (DNR) publishes bird lists for each state park and recreation area. https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/birdchecklists.html
ESRI: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/k-12-education/overview
ESRI Education Blog: https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/bg-p/education-blog This is a blog from ESRI that provides some bite-sized GIS ideas, links to resources, updates on technology, etc. One of the primary contributors (now retired) basically devoted his career at ESRI to building the ArcGIS-in-schools program, so lots of good stuff in there. Also, a Minnesota native who attends the MAGE/U of M/Consortium GeoFest conference in case that’s interesting to people.
Minnesota Geospatial Commons contains shapefiles for many different types of data in the state. It’s like a huge filing cabinet for GIS data. It does not have a built-in GIS application, so you need to have access to something like ArcGIS Online to use it.
The Natural Resources Research Institute at the U of M developed a Natural Resource Atlas of Minnesota. It contains a lot of different layers related to water and land resources and has a built-in GIS application.
uSpatial: https://rc.umn.edu/uspatial
Shana Crosson (scrosson@umn.edu) is uSpatial’s Spatial Technology Consultant, so she’d be a good first contact for teachers/district admins who want GIS setup help. She’s currently working part-time, so there are no guarantees she’s available at any given time, but she’s on the K-12 Education Committee as well.
Beginner’s Guide to Minnesota Trees: Uses leaves as primary identification tool https://conservancy.umn.edu/items/be36c98f-2c93-4012-983c-881c7b36d4cb
Winter Tree ID booklets: Uses twigs, buds, and bark as primary identification https://shop.adventurewithkeen.com/product/winter-tree-finder-2/
Project Learning Tree (PLT): Training, resources and curriculum for incorporating trees into lessons
https://www.plt.org/network/minnesota/
https://www.plt.org/resources/educator-tips/getting-started/
Activity guides for Project Learning Tree: MN DNR https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/plt/activityguide.html
MN DNR Teachers resources: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/education/teachers/index.html
Tree Trust: https://treetrust.org/non-profit/community-forestry/learning-with-trees
MN Forest Industries: https://treezydoesit.com/
Hennepin County: grants for planting on school grounds. They are also doing a winter tree id class (outside) on March 18, 2025, Minneapolis. https://www.hennepin.us/en/residents/conservation/trees-forestry
Phenology with John Latimer, KAXE. From his bio on the KAXE website: “As a mail carrier in rural Grand Rapids, Minn., for 35 years, John Latimer put his own stamp on a career that delivered more than letters. Indeed, while driving the hundred-mile round-trip daily route, he passed the time by observing and recording seasonal changes in nature, learning everything he could about the area’s weather, plants and animals, and becoming the go-to guy who could answer customers’ questions about what they were seeing in the environment.” https://www.kaxe.org/show/phenology-john-latimer
Also check out a phenology-themed podcast from KAXE: “Season Watch:” https://www.kaxe.org/season-watch
National Phenology Network/Nature’s Notebook: Tools, data, and resources for phenology observation and recording. More "science friendly" than "teacher friendly" - definitely for use by teachers for their own use. https://www.usanpn.org/nn
Journey North: (More student friendly!) They have several projects. I linked three of the projects I mentioned in the talk on Wednesday.
- Tulip Test Gardens
- Monarchs
- Ice Out
- Others
Minnesota DNR Ice Out and Ice Over dates
CoCoRAHS - Rain gauges and local precipitation reporting
- Remember, if you live or work in Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District, they have rain gauges you can get at no cost! (www.rpbcwd.org)
Children and Nature Network - great resource for lots of reasons
- Infographics
- Nature boosts academic achievement infographic
- More infographics (Mental health, physical health etc.)
Frost Tube instructions.
The instructions say to drill down 3 meters, but I just had a 5' auger. So that's how deep I went. So far I haven't had a frost line that's gone below that depth over 20 years.
- It says to mark in centimeters, but if you participate in citizen science they ask for measurements in inches.
- Contact Michelle Margraf to participate in the citizen science project. Michelle is a Minnesotan working for NOAA (as of October 2024, hopefully her position still exists). michelle.margraf@noaa.gov
Earth Partnership: Curriculum guide for restoration, Indigenous arts & sciences, water stewardship and more. https://earthpartnership.wisc.edu/curriculum/
Green Schools National Network: If you’d like to really embrace sustainability as a building or a district, GSNN has a framework for you! https://greenschoolsnationalnetwork.org/
North American Association for Environmental Educators: NAAEE maintains a collection of research related to ecological restoration. https://eepro.naaee.org/community/research/collections/ecosystem-restoration
Project Learning Tree:“Project Learning Tree (PLT) is committed to advancing environmental education, forest literacy, and green career pathways, using trees and forests as windows on the world.” Their website has a page that includes practical tips for teaching outside–from a teacher in Minnestota. https://www.plt.org/educator-tips/top-ten-tips-teaching-outside-secondary/
The Society for Ecological Restoration:“SER advances the science, practice, and policy of ecological restoration to sustain biodiversity, improve resilience in a changing climate, and re-establish an ecologically healthy relationship between nature and culture.” https://www.ser.org/
United Nations: The UN declared a Decade on Ecosystem Restoration from 2021 through 2030. https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/schools-and-educators-ecosystem-restoration
Hamline University Center for Global Environmental Education (CGEE). Hamline houses a robust Center for Global Environmental Education with a lot of different resources for STEM educators.
https://cgee.hamline.edu/cornerstone-programs/k-12-classroom-resources
- CGEE’s “Waters to the Sea” tool has multi-disciplinary modules for various waterbodies. Here’s the one for the Mississippi River: https://waterstothesea.org/mississippi/.
- CGEE hosts some amazing PD! If you haven’t signed up for their mailing list yet, I recommend it: https://cgee.hamline.edu/cornerstone-programs/professional-development-and-graduate-programs/teacher-institutes (Scroll down to the bottom right to subscribe.)
Hennepin County: A great resource for anything natural resources. Included here for the access to historic aerial photos and ability to add 2’ contour layers to maps (only existing contours, not historic). It also has the “Measure” tool that allows you to measure distance and area, which makes calculating imperviousness a lot easier!
Other metro counties probably have similar websites. https://gis.hennepin.us/naturalresources/
Metro Children's Water Festival: Every September, 4th grade students from around the Twin Cities converge on the State Fairgrounds for a day of learning about water. While the resources they link on their website are targeted at 4th graders, many could be adapted for middle and high school students. https://metrocwf.org/resources/
Minnesota Historical Aerial Photographs Online: A statewide resource for historic aerial photos. https://apps.lib.umn.edu/mhapo/
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency: https://www.pca.state.mn.us/get-engaged/education.
Stormwater practitioners use the Minnesota Stormwater Manual regularly as a resource for all things stormwater (ponds, infiltration basins, rain gardens, models, etc.). If you have Engineering students or want a deep dive into stormwater, this is for you: https://stormwater.pca.state.mn.us/
Project WET (Water Education Today): According to its mission, “Project WET empowers educators to engage youth to understand water and solve local and global challenges.” They provide books of lesson plans for teachers about a variety of water-related topics. If you’ve ever taught or witnessed a lesson about water, chances are it originated with a Project WET idea!
- Minnesota affiliate: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/projectwet/index.html
- National program: https://www.projectwet.org/
- Nine Mile Creek Watershed District is offering Project WET training on Saturday, April 18. If you’re interested and haven’t received the training before (or haven't been in awhile!), sign up HERE to register.
Sea Grant Minnesota: Sea Grant has a number of education kits that can be loaned out to teachers. The Watershed Game is particularly appropriate to include in lessons about stormwater. https://seagrant.umn.edu/programs/education-and-workforce-development-program/edu-kit-loans
University of Minnesota Water Resources Center: For an even deeper dive into stormwater, check out this online seminar series. The archive (available on YouTube) includes monthly talks from the past 6 years. https://wrc.umn.edu/events/mn-stormwater-seminar
LESSON PLANS
Stormwater Curriculum & Teaching Guide (PDF in Shared Resources Folder): Assembled by a Wisconsin-based consortium of organizations, this guide contains a lot of background on stormwater, as well as several lessons around the topic including:
- Water in a Watershed: Introduction to watersheds
- Follow the Drop: Stormwater on school property
- “Water” You Doing with Hydrology?: Assessing water quality and conservation practices
https://ripple-effects.com/documents/pdf/For-Teachers/Stormwater-Curriculum-and-Teaching-Guide.pdf
Stormwater Education Kit (PDF in Shared Resources Folder): Aimed at 3rd graders in Virginia, this seems a little off target. But I thought back to my high school sophomores and how much they’d love the “Fred the Fish” lesson (p. 10ff.) and how Fred would have become our classroom mascot. So I wanted to include it! The last few lessons could definitely be adapted for middle and high school students.
(Be forewarned that Fred the Fish is also the name of a recurring character from Spongebob.)
https://askhrgreen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Stormwater-Education-Kit_Teacher-Guide.pdf
Rain Garden Sampler (PDF in Shared Resources Folder): If you want to move toward constructing a rain garden on campus, this is a comprehensive set of companion lessons to allow students to design and construct a rain garden. Even without that final product, lessons could easily be modified to help students understand existing rain gardens–or how a rain garden would be sited if one was needed.
- The “Noting Notable Features for Rain Gardens” lesson (p. 23ff.) would be a particularly fantastic way to help students understand the complexity of site design.
https://ripple-effects.com/documents/pdf/For-Teachers/RGS-Full-Rain-Garden-Sampler-2011.pdf
BONUS: TryEngineering: While working to find some stormwater lesson plans, I stumbled across this treasure trove of engineering lesson plans. If you teach engineering in any capacity, this might inspire some great challenges for your students! https://tryengineering.org/explore-resources/?resource_type=2054
DrinkTap.Org (American Water Works Association): AWWA has a fairly basic introduction to drinking water on their website. Perhaps most useful is the list of links to other water websites. https://drinktap.org/Kids-Place
Groundwater and Drinking Water (Environmental Protection Agency): While this link is primarily background information for teachers, it’s very thorough. There is a link to teacher activities, etc. at the bottom of the page. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water
Water Science (United States Geological Survey): A huge repository of activities, lesson plans, photos, and multilingual resources on all aspects of water. https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school
PODCAST: “Real Talk with Rick” Water Treatment Plant Supervisor Joe Dusek chats with Eden Prairie’s City Manager Rick Getschow. https://www.edenprairiemn.gov/community/stay-connected/real-talk-with-rick
(Scroll down to “Just Add Water.”)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Water Works! (Hamline University CGEE): This three-day, hands-on workshop allows upper elementary, middle, and high school science teachers to enrich their water-related benchmarks and come away with new teaching ideas and information from expert presenters on the engineering, chemistry, geology, people, and politics of how drinking water is delivered to your home and school. Meals and resource binder provided. Choose between two graduate credits or a stipend – both will require your attendance at a Saturday follow-up session in fall. https://cgee.hamline.edu/cornerstone-programs/professional-development-and-graduate-programs/teacher-institutes/waterworks
