Grades K-6
8 sections, 178 pages

The world has many diverse environments and each one supports different types of organisms that are adapted for survival. This book provides opportunities to take each of eight “environmental expeditions” to examine the complex interactions between living things and how they meet their needs.  From snapping turtles to dragonfly nymphs, animals from each environment will come to life and students will begin to see the relationships between living things.

Environments explored are: rivers; lakes, ponds, and saltwater marshes; valleys; prairies; deserts; mountains; oceans; and polar lands. The teaching activities are divided into three grade-level spans: K-2, 3-4, and 5-6 to allow for developmentally-appropriate strategies.

Exploring Environments offers teachers great flexibility regarding teaching plans and applications. A variety of curriculum options give engaging ways to conduct age-related activities. Younger students can enjoy learning from the science buddy puppet and making animal masks. Older students can become mini-experts on an environment and provide a “news report” or present a documentary during the “World Ecology Summit.”  Teachers can make learning exercises student driven or teacher directed, depending upon time and interest.

Exploring Environments can be used to enhance and extend the study of landforms. After students have had experiences with Earth studies and can identify major landforms on our Earth, a natural extension to the learning is to study the environments that are found on and near those landforms.