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Hey everyone, I have been tasked with teaching a STEM class, and creating a curriculem. I really struggled my first year trying to find engaging activities, without spending to much of my own money. I am currently working on creating a curriculum and want to make it have an Environmental Science perspective. Is there any resources that anyone can recommend for me to check out? 

You could have the students follow the migration of monarch butterflies. Have them track where they go and why they might be going there. To get the environmental science aspect, ask them what may happen if the butterflies skipped a particular area or stopped migrating altogether? What effects may there be on the rest of the world if they no longer existed? This could be altered by changing the species to any pollinator if you don't want to use monarch butterflies.

Consider observing water quality.  I work for Foldscope instruments and we have a low-cost microscope that you could distribute to every student.  The Foldscope is a low-cost microscope made of paper and a small glass bead for a lens. It costs less than a dollar to manufacture and we sell them in packages of 20 for $25 (that's just $1.75 per microscope)  They have 140x magnification and 2micron resolution, so very much like a microscope you would find in a science lab.  And because they are so inexpensive, every student can have their own!  See our website for more info. 

You can take water samples from a local pond and observe under a Foldscope. Often times students will see numerous organisms in the water.  You can try the same thing with tap water and see if they see anything.

Hi Tyler! This quarter I decided to create a mini-unit on native and non-native bee species in California for students to learn during distance learning. There are SO many resources online that are built around the importance of bees within our ecosystems. There seems to be a strong focus on European Honey Bees, but my students have really enjoyed learning about native bees (especially solitary bees). I would be happy to share the resources I created with you.