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Social Media Smarts

Social media is part of our everyday lives. It provides entertainment, news, reference information, and so much more. However, not all the content we find on social media is accurate. In this activity, students will investigate the prevalence of misinformation on popular social media platforms. In their investigation, students examine how platforms’ biases and algorithms influence the type of content social media users see and the level of misinformation displayed.

Solving Hard-to-Reach Problems with ROVs

Remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, are often used in environments that would be unsafe or difficult for people to enter to explore. In this activity, students will think critically about how engineering practices can be used to monitor environmental issues or solve real-world problems before designing and modeling an ROV that could be used to investigate a real-world problem impacting their local environment.

Homework Help? ChatGPT is Poised to Disrupt Education

Playing around with ChatGPT is enormously fun, and the technology can be useful. But there are pitfalls too. In this Guide, students will learn about AI and the benefits and challenges posed by the chatbot.

Cultural Connections for Species at Risk

In the face of habitat loss and pollution, more species around the world are threatened by extinction. But how should conservation resources be allocated? In this activity, students will debate whether the allocation of conservation resources should consider the cultural significance of a species.

Shores Still Reeling from 2010 Oil Spill

Soil erosion happens naturally and through human actions. In this activity, students will explore how an oil spill changed Louisiana’s coastline, and they will look for examples of landscape features that were created by erosion and examples of human-caused erosion in their area.

Cascading effects of erosion

Students will discuss a disastrous event that led to erosion and use the event to contextualize the impact of erosion on humans and the ways humans increase and decrease erosion. Learning Outcomes: Determining examples of erosion and its positive and negative impacts on humans and analyzing an example of a human-induced ecosystem disruption and understanding how it caused erosion in the ecosystem over time.

Curbing Climate Change

The emissions of greenhouse gases through human activities are changing the world and making it warmer. But there are technologies and strategies that can reduce these emissions and slow climate change. In this activity, students will research methods of reducing carbon dioxide production and removing carbon from the atmosphere and present on their findings.

The Past, Present and Future of Spaceflight

Have you ever wondered how the people who get to fly in space are chosen? The path to becoming an astronaut has changed a lot over the years. In this activity, students will learn about the space travelers of the past and present — and consider a future where the diversity of astronauts better reflects the diversity of all of humankind. Students will use their creative writing skills to imagine this future.

Chemists Crack the Code to Ancient Roman Concrete

The ancient Romans built concrete structures that have stood for thousands of years. In this Guide, students will learn how scientists experimented to make Roman-style concrete — without causing explosions!

Write a scientific question based in history

In this quick activity, students will write a scientific question to learn more about a historical artifact. Learning Outcomes: Asking scientific questions

The Road to Net-Zero

Human activities pump a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and those emissions are driving climate change. In this guide, students will review greenhouse gases and their sources and learn about ways to reduce emissions.

How to make the future climate-friendly

Students will answer questions about the online Science News article “It’s possible to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Here’s how,” which explores various solutions to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. A version of the article, “The road to net-zero,” appears in the January 28, 2023 issue of Science News.