Lesson Plans & Activities
Data Puzzle: Snow in the Rockies
This data puzzle is a stand-alone lesson that is part of a larger collection of data puzzles.
Water from snowmelt high in the Rocky Mountains feeds into the Colorado River, a river system that more than 40 million people rely on for water. In this Data Puzzle, students analyze snowfall and snowmelt datasets to investigate the question, "How have snow conditions in the East River Watershed changed over time?"
Data Puzzle: Wildfire, Drought, and the Future of Forests
This data puzzle is a stand-alone lesson that is part of a larger collection of data puzzles.
Wildfires are burning more and more of the forests across the western United States. In this Data Puzzle, Data Puzzle, students analyze post-fire forest recovery datasets as they gather evidence to construct explanatory models for the following question, "How do climate conditions impact the recovery of forests after a wildfire?"
Data Puzzle: Tracing Carbon Through the Arctic Food Web
This data puzzle is a stand-alone lesson that is part of a larger collection of data puzzles.
The Arctic is home to a huge variety of living things (humans included) that have adapted to harsh conditions. However, these conditions are changing as Arctic temperatures rise and sea ice declines. In this Data Puzzle, students trace the flow of carbon through the Arctic food web to construct explanatory models for the following question, "How might the decline in sea ice affect Arctic organisms large and small?"

Data Puzzle: The Tipping Point
This data puzzle is a stand-alone lesson that is part of a larger collection of data puzzles.
Plants like moss campion are uniquely adapted to the cold, dry climate characteristic of the tundra biome...but temperatures are on the rise. In this Data Puzzle, students analyze temperature and reproduction data to construct explanatory models for the following question "How is moss campion reproduction affected by temperature?"