LESSON 1- Questions Ball & Scavenger Hunt

The Questions Ball is a great activity to use as a background probe, review game or icebreaker. Simply print out questions, stick them on a beach ball, and have students throw it around . When they catch the ball, they read the question that their thumb is on top of or closest to, and answer it before passing the ball to another student.

The Nature Scavenger Hunt is a classic in outdoor education and can be adapted to any environment/ situation/ age/ time availability. Kids are divided into pairs/ small groups and either collect items (things like rocks, seeds, fallen leaves) or answer questions, or a combination of both. Here's an example of a Scavenger Hunt specific to a school, but can provide ideas of types of questions and easily edited.

GeoDetectives Session 2

LESSON 2- Explore Compost

These slides can be used for a lesson exploring compost. They introduce what compost is, show a time-lapse video of earthworms turning food scraps to organic mush for soil and explain how to make a compost system and what can/ cannot be put in it (in English and Spanish)

LESSON 3- Your State Rocks

This activity introduces participants to some common rocks found around the state and locations they are likely to be found at. A giant map of the state is drawn on the floor with sidewalk chalk. Buckets (or piles) of rocks are placed on each of the locations on the map where they would be normally found. Participants are given a paper copy of the map and a baggie with small specimens of the featured rocks, the objective is for them to place them on the proper map locations on the paper map by going back and forth to grab one of the big specimens and matching them to the small ones.

Example- Using six featured state rocks...

  • Giant map of the state on the ground using chalk

  • 6 buckets in the 6 spots containing 10 rocks each, where they are found.

  • They grab one, and bring it back to their spot

  • Match the small rock in their baggie with the big rock they got from map

  • They return the rock and go find the next one

  • And so on...

NC Rock Slides and Map (ENG/ SPA)

For more information about rocks and minerals of their state, we created a website geared towards a Grade 3+ audience (English and Spanish version links below):

Rocks and Minerals of North Carolina for K12 (website)

Rocas y Minerales de Carolina del Norte para Niños (página web)

Rocks in GeoDetectives

LESSON 4- Lichens & Mosses

Exploring Mosses and Lichens- Introduce the differences between mosses and lichens using these slides, then have the participants look for mosses and lichens in the surroundings and identify them. Simple digital microscopes are great for this since they are wireless and have an adequate magnification for the specimens.

Lichen Model- Make a lichen model in a clear cup using water beads, cotton wool and felt, to better understand the structure.

Making a Mossarium- A "mossarium" is a terrarium featuring mainly moss. They can be made in many different types of container, either open, closed (open once in a while to let air in/out), or partially open. Cupcake take-out containers or "clam shells" (like the one shown) are great to use with kids. We added pieces of fallen branches that had lichen growing on them.

LESSON 5- Monitoring & Protecting Creek Habitats

Students are introduced to aquatic stream life and why it's important to protect it, including not stacking river rocks.

Students then explore the nearest body of water to them and record some observations. Other than physical attributes of the stream or pond and noting any environmental issues that might affect it, students can measure water quality using these simple digital multimeters for temperature and total dissolved solids (at this age, we use TDS as a proxy for salinity, explaining the relationship between parameters). They can also note streamflow, turbidity, state of the riverbank or pond edge, vegetation, etc. Aquatic macroinvertebrates can also be collected and used as biodindicators (see stream macroinvertebrate PDF cards and chart below).

For more water education activity ideas, check out the Water On the Move Elementary lesson plans.

The "Incredible Journey" about the water cycle by Project WET is also a wonderful activity to do in an environmental science club outdoor setting with audiences of any age grades 3+.

LESSON 6- Biodiversity & Invasive Species

For this lesson, students can be divided into 3-4 groups with the same number of rotating stations, each one focusing on one aspect of biodiversity or local invasive species.

The Threat of Invasive Species video and How Do We Fix This? video.


Invasive species fish game (for older students)

USDA Hungry Pests curriculum and activities

LESSON 7- Birds & Bats

For the lesson on birds and bats, we invited local experts to share their knowledge, activities (and specimens) with the students. The Audubon Society is an incredible resource for this. Their members are always happy to talk to local groups and have experience with environmental education. There are chapters through out North and South America (for other international partners, check out BirdLife International).

The Merlin app by The Cornell Ornithology Lab is also an amazing resource for kids nature clubs, with the press of one button, you can record bird songs around you and the app will identify the different birds.

Building and installing bird and bat boxes is another great way to extend participants' learning beyond the club!

For a classic that never gets old, add the Owl Pellet Bone Identification activity (pellets can be purchased via Amazon or any science education supplier).

LESSON 8- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Make Recycled Paper- Wooden frames with window screen mesh can be used as mold and deckles for making recycled paper. The pulp can be made using small scraps of used office paper and newspaper soaked in water for a few days. An old blender can speed up the process and make the pulp finer. An example of a tutorial can be found here.

Make a DIY Solar Oven- Mini solar ovens can be made using a pizza box, cookie box or empty Pringles container. After a discussion about what colors reflect and absorb heat energy and how these concepts can be applied to the making of a solar oven, the Pringles containers or boxes are painted black on the outside and colored silver (or covered in aluminum foil) inside. The mini ovens can be used to melt marshmallow and chocolate on top of a Graham cracker for s'mores.

Some great tutorials about DIY solar ovens can be found on YouTube, for example: https://youtu.be/nsXhfpE5NCY

LESSON 9- Protecting Pollinators

Invite a local beekeeper to talk about their craft and learn about the importance of pollinators. Students can then learn about non-bee pollinators such as birds, bats and non-honey producing bees, like the mason bees. They can make recycled mason bee hotels using cans and rolled up paper strips cut out of grocery bags. The slides below will help with the introduction, the mason bee hotel tutorial can be found here.

Sealife and Plastic Pollution

LESSON 10- Plastic Pollution in Water

Cut Up 6-Pack Plastic Rings

This is a good activity for the first part of a lesson/ while the students are having a snack. The slides can be used for discussion of what happens to plastic waste (eg. from the snack wrappers) and why it's important to properly dispose of 6-pack plastic rings. The slides include a video explainer about how to cut up the plastic rings, which the kids can each have a go at.