How do Polar vortexes, climate change, record storms, extreme weather of all kinds play havoc on our ecosystems and all the species that live there? Discover the answers by watching the four parts of this science show and reading the information below. And to take this learning adventure into your classroom, have your teacher download the free Discussion Guide at the bottom of this page so everyone can share in the fun of this inquiry based learning.
While some species thrive, like record hordes of mosquitoes, others like the loons or whooping cranes struggle to raise their broods when assaulted by record hatches of blood-sucking blackflies. Even though species have had to adapt to various stages of climate change such as glacial advances across the Midwest over the past 2.3 million years, it’s little consolation to some species enduring extreme changes each year that affect their chances of survival. And even with our modern technology, us humans must also develop new strategies to confront the challenges of surviving in the face of record snows, rains, and temperature extremes. While considering this fact, imagine what it must have been like historically for Native Americans.
So all this raises the question, “How do the species that live out in the wild survive these extreme conditions?” The answer is all about extreme survival strategies that different species have evolved over tens of thousands of years. Some strategies are similar between species while others are extremely different. To discover how many species use their unique survival strategies, watch the four segments of this exciting episode. You might even learn that you're not supposed to mess with hibernating bears in their den as they can easily wake up and defend themselves. And for gosh sakes, don't run from that bear!
To take this survival strategy learning to a whole new level, have your teacher download the free discussion guide so your entire classroom can participate while learning a few survival tricks from Mother Nature. If you're an elementary or high school student, download the additional lessons we have provided to use with the discussion guide!
Plus, the educational partner noted below supported the video and lesson content here for all of us to learn from. They also offer other learning opportunities on their website. So click on their logo to discover more!
Did you know that sturgeon have been around since the age of dinosaurs? No kidding - That’s a 150 million years! Discover this and more by watching the four parts of this science show and reading the information below. And to take this learning adventure into your classroom, have your teacher download the free Companion Discussion Guide at the bottom of this page so everyone can share in the fun of this inquiry based learning.
That makes sturgeon one of the rare remaining "living fossils" that still survive on Planet Earth. These huge fish are native to the Great Lakes region and had extensive and large populations in pre-settlement times. However, as settlement took place, people removed more fish than what the population could sustain because they are such a vulnerable fish species that take decades to reach maturity - plus they don’t spawn every year. In the late 1800s, dam construction on the Wolf River prevented the sturgeon from returning back to Menominee Tribal lands. That impacted both the fish and their cultural importance to the Menominee people. To help both the fish and preserve the cultural importance of the sturgeon to the Menominee Tribe, the Wisconsin DNR, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin have collaborated in a cooperative project to restore sturgeon to the upper Wolf River. This Into the Outdoors program and the related Serious Science videos and lesson guides explore the fascinating world of these living fossils and their relationship with us humans.
The four (4) parts to this Sturgeon Conservation episode of Into the Outdoors combined with the Classroom Discussion Guide below, will pack your brain with more fish science than a sturgeon has eggs! Well, almost. Share with your class. Everything here is free, fun and so interesting that you may want to become a scientist!
Plus, the educational partner noted below supported the video and companion lesson content here for all of us to learn from. They also offer other learning opportunities on their website. So click on their logo to discover more!
How has dairy farming changed in the past 200 years? Discover the answers by watching the four parts of this science show and reading the information below. And to take this learning adventure into your classroom, have your teacher download the free Lesson Guides at the bottom of this page so everyone can share in the fun of this inquiry based learning.
Historically, many families had their own dairy. Well, kinda - they had a cow. It was a pretty simple operation back then. The cow ate grass, its udder filled with milk, and the farmer and their family milked the cow by hand – twice a day. As more people started living in cities, dairy farmers began selling their milk in towns. It involved milking more cows by hand, pouring it into barrels then selling it door-to-door from a wagon. That was a lot hard work to make a living. Many of them also began making their own butter and cheese from their cow’s milk. It grew to the point that by 1900, Wisconsin had become the leading state in the nation for producing milk, butter and cheese.
Join our adventure team as they explore the science and technology of today’s dairy farming. Spanning the history of old-time milking to the hi-tech present, the ITO hosts discover how the dairy industry has changed dramatically in the past 100 years from raising cows to milking them.
Plus, the educational partner noted below supported the video and lesson content here for all of us to learn from. They also offer other learning opportunities on their website. Educators are encouraged to evaluate and consider their science sources. Click on their logo to discover more!
Do you want to wade into the murky science of understanding our wetland ecosystems? Discover the answers by watching the four parts of this science show and reading the information below. And to take this learning adventure into your classroom, have your teacher download the free Companion Discussion Guide at the bottom of this page so everyone can share in the fun of this inquiry based learning.
Join our team of explorers discovers how water cycles, wetland ecology, biodiversity, invasive species, and related human influences impact our lives. Historic and modern impacts from society have shaped the vital role that wetlands play in the water cycle. That directly affects the survival challenges faced by the species within the wetlands ecological pyramid. But this study of wetlands ecology also ripples far beyond the waters in the marshes. That’s why understanding how to manage our shrinking wetlands is vital to so many things in our everyday lives.
So encourage your teacher to download some of the free classroom lesson guides below that companion the online videos to help you expand the pools of your Wetlands Wisdom!
Of course water curious students and educators can learn all about the various roles of water in our lives by exploring Project WET's Discover Water. Just follow the link and dive into all the learning there.
As a bonus to high school educators, follow this link to Project Learning Tree's Biodiversity online educational materials.
In Protecting Forests, Enhancing Lives two girls examine the perception that clear cutting forests is destroying the natural environment by visiting forests and professionals that work with production forests. What they find surprises them - the apparent destruction of clear cutting the trees is actually a method of forest regeneration and invigoration. They learn about the methods of several career foresters in their inquiry, and observe trees in all stages of growth, harvest, and transformation into wood products.
Learn more on this topic by exploring the links below:
Logging in the Great Lakes States
“Track that Product” lesson plan and kit for teachers from LEAF
Deforestation vs. Forest Management
The information in our video and on this page was made possible by our educational partners.
Anyone, anywhere can get started hunting with the right tools and guidance! Hunting anywhere is challenging, especially for an inexperienced hunter. In order to be successful, new hunters need to get certified in hunter education within their state. New hunters can also benefit from the guidance of a mentor, someone to teach, guide and help them as they get started.
You may be interested to know that hunting is also closely tied to sustainability and conservation efforts. Hunters play a huge role in restoring and protecting habitats for animals who live in an ecosystem, and modern hunters work to help balance wildlife populations.
In this Into the Outdoors episode and related Into the Outdoors @Home topic videos, we see that learning a new skill like hunting can lead to an incredible journey of personal discovery. We also learn the ways in which hunting and wildlife conservation efforts go hand in hand.
Find links to the Into the Outdoors @Home topic videos below. These custom learning videos are designed to share with your entire classroom. You’ll also find other educational content, including custom lesson activities that blend peer-driven learning and hands-on activities.
For more information and resources related to hunting and conservation, visit Hunter-ED.com
The information in our video and on this page was made possible by our educational partners.
Maybe it's only natural that us humans rarely think about how our actions today might impact others or the environment 100 years later. That was especially true back in the late 1800s when a fledgling America roared into the 20th Century. We needed lumber, electricity, transportation, and fossil fuels to feed the growth spurt of our young nation.
So we built dams. Lots of dams on lots of rivers, both big and small. We built some to last for centuries, others just using dirt and wood. They generated electricity, created backwaters, and we used the power (weight) of elevated water to drive grain and lumber mills (thus the word "mill pond" - a reservoir of water behind a dam that's used for driving a mill-
Despite all the dam-good intentions, (mostly to make someone money), over time the dams grew older, backwaters filled with silt, they became idle and failed to generate enough power to bake a pizza or grind a loaf of bread. One solution was to simply walk away and let some later generation deal with it. Besides, what harm would it do just leaving it alone?
Sadly, the fact is, nothing lasts forever. And communities began discovering two things about old dams: 1) old dams can become hazardous and fail, endangering property and lives downstream, 2) old dams prevent aquatic and related ecosystems from functioning as they had evolved to do over millennium. In short, dams created a stagnated ecosystem that restricted healthy movement of nutrients and species within a watershed. Not cool!
Well then, let's just blow those old dams and make the world right again! Ooops not so fast, partner. While all the dam building was going on, something else happened as us humans also built new waterways to "help" our expanding society. And in some places, such at the Great Lakes region, we unwittingly allowed invaders to enter those huge ecosystems with devastating results. Watch the video here and read the Learn More section below to get the bigger picture of this invasive species story and its impact on our Great Lakes. To wade into the latest information and research on our Great Lakes and invaders, explore the Great Lakes Fishery Commission's website.
But if you really want to explore the world of invasive species, and wrestle with the challenges of reconnecting rivers around the Great Lakes, have your teacher and classroom download the free lesson activities below and watch the Sea Lamprey and Connectivity Conundrum classroom videos here (thumbnails in the upper right) so you can share in the peer-driven learning about the "de-evolution" of our Great Lakes and how scientists try to restore ecosystems while controlling invasive species.
As you'll see in this television episode, parents like to show how much they know... or what they think they know. We get it. It’s part of being a parent. So watch and learn how to use simple quizzes to test their boating safety savvy while also making them aware of key boating safety points… such as:
Help them build on their knowledge – Parents are supposed to have more life experiences than their kids, that should equate to more safety smarts. So ask them to use that experience to create a Family Float Plan… even if they don’t what a float plan is. Simply ask them to imagine what could go wrong on a boating adventure, then how to minimize those risks with a float plan. Have then write it down... which is part of actually creating a float plan.
Blend boating “fun” with boating “safety” – Once you’re out on the water having fun, boating, fishing or whatever, present a few more quiz competitions (maybe the loser buys ice cream at the end of the day) Consider some of these critical quiz questions:
Want to really "plunge headlong" into getting your parents and classmates into having a blast learning about boating safety? (That's right, you are allowed to have fun learning how to be safe on the water). Learn more on sharing the peer-driven classroom video and the FREE lesson activity that's designed to get the entire class involved in three days of interactive learning... while having a blast with kid-parent-instructor role playing in school where everyone gets ALL ABOARD with boating safety! And check out the other boating safety videos in the thumbnails... in the upper right window.
The information in our video and on this page was made possible by our educational partners.
Whether you're boating or fishing from a boat, canoe, or kayak, being safe on the water comes down to a few basic facts. The first fact facing us humans is that we can't breathe if we're underwater. Duaah, no kidding! But even floundering in rough water on the surface can cause someone to choke on so much water that they could pass out and drown.
That concept is supported by the second fact: 79% of fatal boating accident victims drowned. Of those drowning victims, 86% were not wearing a life jacket.
And although we can't survey people who drowned, (because they're dead or fish-bait) most who were not wearing a PFD (personal flotation device) would probably have boasted beforehand that they didn't need to wear one because... "What? Me worry? Heck, I'm a decent swimmer!" Kinda makes you wonder if they thought about that as they took their last lung-full of water before they passed out and drowned?
All of that makes the third fact pretty simple logic; It's pretty darn hard to drown if you're wearing your life jacket. So why were those hundreds of fatal drowning victims each year not wearing a PFD? That's what we'll decode here both in the content of this webpage, in the video here, and for students and teachers to learn from each other in the fun, interactive lesson activity at the bottom of this page.
So let’s begin by decoding the two reasons people make fatal mistakes. People contribute to fatal accidents, on the water or on land, because they either 1) don’t recognize the potential dangers beforehand, or 2) they think it’s not that dangerous for them, so they try doing it anyway. Although we can’t prevent someone from risking their life or the lives of loved ones, we can solve “not knowing” with education that empowers people to make safe-n-smart choices on the water. We already covered the first biggie; wearing your life jacket from the moment you get near the water to the moment you’re on dry land again. And if you hear someone whining about the excuses for not wearing one; “It makes me look fat”, “It’s too bulky and hot”, “It makes me look uncool to my friends”. Push the pause button and ask them if they want to look dead or alive. Then explain Fact #2 to them.
Of course there are other reasons that people get into trouble on the water. In fact there are soooo many reasons and circumstances that it's too much to try and cover here. If you'd like to research those details, explore the boating safety website of our educational partner here, The U.S. Coast Guard. And before you ever try operating a boat, you really should:
The information in our video and on this page was made possible by our educational partners.