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Activity: Ethanol Fermentation

Ethanol MoleculeWhat kinds of foods are easiest to ferment for fuel? Ethanol is made from a variety of plant substances – corn, sugar cane, even some kinds of wood. In this activity, students test different substances to see what they can learn about fermentation.

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Science Class in Fields and Forests

Students Plant Trees60 freshman at Maryland’s North Harford High School will be the first to join a new Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences program, spending time outside the classroom in barns, pastures, and fields to learn about farming and the environment.

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Competition: Solution to Air-Dry Clothes. July 31, 2010

Care to AirIn partnership with the Myoo Create community, Levi Strauss & Co. is running a competition for designers everywhere to respond to the challenge of how to design the world’s most innovative, covetable, and sustainable air-drying solution for clothing. They’re offering $10,000 prize money to be distributed among the finalists for the most effective solutions, as well as an audience with experienced designers and eco-innovators.

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Contest: X-Prize Oil-spill cleanup

Workers Burn Off Some Gulf Oil Spill PetroleumThe latest X-Prize Foundation multimillion-dollar engineering and invention contest will tackle the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, with entrants proposing solutions to shorelines and open water sullied by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which has been gushing since April 20, 2010.

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Lesson: Life After Trash

Student teams use the engineering design process to create a useful product of their choice out of recyclable items and “trash.” The class is given a “landfill” of reusable items and allowed a limited amount of bonding materials. The activity addresses the importance of reuse and encourages students to look at ways they can reuse items they would normally throw away. Students are further prompted to consider the problems with growing landfills, and efforts by engineers and others to reduce pollution, emissions, and trash production.

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Lesson Plan: Oil Spill Solutions

San Francisco Oil Spill - Closed BeachesIn this lesson, students in grades 3-12 work in teams to analyze an “oil spill” in the classroom, then design, build, and test a system to first contain, and then remove the oil from the water. Students select from everyday items to build their oil containment and clean-up systems, evaluate the effectiveness of their solution and those of other teams, and present their findings to the class.

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Lesson: Landfills and Contamination

What happens to garbage? In this lesson, students grades 9-12 derive the answer by building their own landfill. While observing how household waste can leach into soil and groundwater, they also learn the importance of well supervised, sanitary disposal sites.

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Website: Superfund Sites Where You Live

EPA LogoThis comprehensive website, run by the Environmental Protection Agency, provides lists of Superfund sites organized by state. A Superfund site is an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people. Important documents, contacts, timelines, and historical information are available for each location.

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Resource: Hazardous Waste Class Activities

EPA-Logo1HAZ-ED is a collection of class materials for grades 7-12 focusing on hazardous waste, dump sites, and efforts of remediation The materials — which include basic information, warm-up and full class activities, fact sheets, a glossary, suggested readings, a brochure about the Superfund program, and a bibliography — can be used as part of a larger curriculum or stand-alone.

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