This month’s blog topic, Land & Cleanup, is far more personally relevant than I expected! Beautiful spring-like weather coerced me to do my annual yard cleanup much earlier than usual. Even though I’ve xeriscaped significantly, non-native invasive vines and saplings commandeer a good bit of physical energy each season.
Speaking of energy, the previous post focused on one kind of renewable energy: solar. The Great Buffalo Shortage activity helps students learn how to weigh the trade-offs of mining operations, a common way of extracting non-renewable energy sources. Like the buffalo, that almost became extinct, without proper management, we may lose the environment itself. Click on the image below or right here to review a truly hands-on model that offers a fun formative assessment!
Many students tend to believe that mining always produces a profit. They may not know about the regulations governing mining and requirements for land management or how to weigh the yield. As detailed on the EPA’s abandoned mine lands site, AMLs present serious threats to human health and the environment… not to mention often extreme scarring of the land. I think it’s well worth your time to scroll way down NASA’s remote sensing tutorial page to see satellite images of long term changes in resource use, such as strip mining and the progress of land reclamation.
Instructor Notes: It’s sadly easy to relate real-world stories of energy-related environmental destruction back to almost every activity I’ve shared to date! Think about the implications of mining operations in terms of systems (Balancing Acts), adaptation (Moth Mothers), food webs (Oops, I Broke It), and population (No More Room), for starters. That’s why I was so happy to see a new Fact Sheet added to the EPA resource site just this past December. Directly related to the Energy Watchers activity, Shining Light on a Bright Opportunity: Developing Solar Energy on Former Mine Lands provides a great summary of solar energy – and how abandoned mining areas can serve as ‘renewed’ sites for renewable energy production.
HippoCampus Connections: Several excellent resources on HippoCampus support an understanding of why the revitalization and reuse of damaged land – and protection of land in general – is important to each of us. The Mining for Borax video shows a real-world success story of managing this balance. Unsustainable Frontier Ethic simulation shows why it’s critical we find and maintain a balance by explaining desert encroachment. Tree Harvesting explains how we can mechanically remove a renewable resource in a sustainable way. The Fight to Preserve the Bollana Wetlands presents a case study of how citizens took action to save a local environment from over-development. Other related items of possible interest include: Mine Restoration and Area Strip Mining.
FYI:I’ve set upplaylists on myHippo pageat the new HippoCampus site to match all of these blog activities for your convenience.
Even though your students may not have direct exposure to mining operations, other than the many historic towns that come to mind initially (Leadville, CO for example), there are many active operations globally. See what’s closest to home on the USGS Mine and Mineral Processing Plant Locations map – and then see if your students agree with the practices and policies in place there today!
Links
HippoCampus Environmental Science Study Group on OpenStudy.com:
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HippoCampus is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE). The goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge.
HippoCampus was designed as part of Open Education Resources (OER), a worldwide effort to improve access to quality education for everyone. HippoCampus content has been developed by some of the finest colleges and universities in the world and contributed to the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC), another MITE project. NROC makes editorial and engineering investment in the content to prepare it for distribution by HippoCampus. Both HippoCampus and NROC are supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
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The HippoCampus website uses Adobe Flash. We recommend that you have Adobe Flash Player 7.0 or higher installed on your system. In addition, some of the Environmental Science content require Apple QuickTime version 6 or higher. Be sure to have QuickTime set to enable embedded flash content (you will find this option in the QuickTime control panel under advanced settings).
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We are a non-profit organization and provide the content at our websites for self-improvement only as part of our mission. You cannot get credit for it since we are not a school.
While we understand that you may need assistance with your homework, we cannot provide the answers to your problems or individual assistance. We hope you can use our website as a tool to help you learn the subject matter so that you can find the answers.
We correlate our content to a variety of widely used textbooks so that you may choose the books you wish. You do not need to buy any of the books mentioned.
More than half the use of HippoCampus occurs during classroom hours, when teachers go online to project topic lectures and show simulations launched from the HippoCampus site. Teachers can use the site as is, or can create custom playlists of topics in their custom HippoCampus page by creating a free user account. Just click the Log In link in the top-right corner of any HippoCampus page to get started.
HippoCampus is not a credit-granting organization, and does not monitor, grade, or give transcripts to anyone using the site. However, many home schooling families have used HippoCampus content to supplement or guide their home curriculum, and we welcome them as users.
HippoCampus is made possible by the members of NROC, the National Repository of Online Courses, and many NROC members do offer credit for courses that contain HippoCampus content. For a complete list of NROC members, see: http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nrocnetwork/members.php
Yes, although homeschoolers should realize that the content presented is not a complete course. The content is intended to have an instructor to provide supplemental assignments and instruction. Since there is no teacher available through HippoCampus, the parent must take the role of instructor.
We have done research to identify some very good wet lab resources for virtual schools that could also be used successfully by homeschoolers. Here are a few of the top options:
Smart Science® virtual labs are a complete science learning system with online assessments and reports, delivery of all course activities and student and curriculum tracking for current and prior terms. In 2007 the College Board approved AP science courses that incorporate Smart Science® AP labs as their lab components. Full sets of labs (20-30 labs per course) are offered for only 15$ a student at the AP level and 10$ a student at the non AP level.
The science lab kits and products offered by LabPaq (formerly Hands-On Labs, Inc.) were specifically designed and selected by practicing distance educators to serve the "At Home" science study markets. These kits are used with web courses, telecommunication courses, home-schooling programs, and all other forms of independent study. http://www.LabPaq.com
Students are not required to log in to HippoCampus.org, so there is no way to track student use from the public site. However, institutions that are members of the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC) have access to HippoCampus content through their school's learning management system, which can track use, assignments, and grades.
No. Our Terms of Use specify that HippoCampus is provided by the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education for personal enrichment and individual instructor use only. The use of this content by educational organizations or commercial vendors is prohibited.
Unfortunately, there is no way to download the video from our website to put into PowerPoint®. As an individual user, however, you may create a custom HippoCampus page and then link to an individual topic. After you have created your custom page, there will be buttons in the upper right corner that allow you to view the text version (when available), bookmark, or link to the topic.
Your screen resolution may be set too low. The Algebra course requires that your screen resolution be at 1024x768 or higher. Most of the other content requires a resolution of 600x800 or higher.
Closed captioning is not available, but an alternate text-based presentation of the same content is available by clicking the text icon in the title bar, above the multimedia. The presentation text was made available to specifically address this accessibility issue.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to requires Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. The educational resources provided at HippoCampus.org were not procured by, and are not made available through, a Federal agency, so the law is not applicable to the content at this website.
All the content we provide at HippoCampus is created by other educational institutions and contributed to us to distribute as part of our non-profit mission.
Due to the complexity of modifying the multimedia content, we cannot always correct errors within the video presentations. There is an Errata icon that appears with any topics in which a known error has been identified. We encourage our users to report any errors they discover so that we can notify everyone of the problem.
There is also an errata sheet available for some courses if you select "Course Format."
Note: we will need to confirm this answer after we see how this shapes up in the redesign.
Use the bug reporting feature. Click the icon (SHOW ICON): in the window frame above the page with the error in it. Please describe the issue as precisely as possible.
If you provide your email address, we will inform you about the correction process, or ask any follow-up question necessary to clarify the report.
The tests that appear on our website are intended as open tests for self-assessment only. They are not intended to be secure tests since the answers are freely available at several websites.
There are answer keys available for the chapter tests but not for the review questions. The answer keys for the chapter tests are located as a link right under the chapter test link.
We know a lot of homeschoolers use HippoCampus. We are often asked if homeschoolers can study the content at HippoCampus and then just take and pass the AP exam.
HippoCampus courses were designed to address the AP College Board criteria. However, as with any teaching resource, they should not be considered a singular solution, but can be used as a good foundation for an AP teaching curriculum. The courses at HippoCampus have not currently been mapped to the CLEP and DANTE tests.
If you wish to receive college credit for taking an AP course, most colleges will require that the course have been approved by the College Board. Schools wishing to give their students AP credit must go through the AP audit process. The same is true for homeschoolers. The AP Course Ledger section below gives more information about the audit process.
AP Course Ledger
The AP Course Ledger is a comprehensive and public registry of all courses authorized to use the AP label on student transcripts. The Ledger is an annual and culminating product of the AP Course Audit, a process by which college faculty confirm that courses submitted by AP teachers and schools provide students with the essential elements of a college level experience. As an exclusively Web-based registry, the Ledger is published annually in November and updated weekly throughout the academic year to reflect newly authorized courses.
Here is a link to AP Audit information, (and you can find other links on this page to various other resources):
Yes, the AP Course Audit is only required for schools desiring to:
-- use the "AP" designation on students' transcripts
-- be listed in the ledger of authorized AP courses provided each fall to college and university admissions offices and the public.
Schools that simply offer the AP Exam as an opportunity for their students to earn college credit, without actually labeling the school's courses "AP" on students' transcripts, do not need to participate in the AP Course Audit, and can continue offering AP Exams to their students.
Our AP content is a good resource to help students prepare for AP exams. However, while we provide content resources, we do not have instructors who teach the courses. In order to be authorized by the College Board and put in the AP Course Ledger, an instructor must submit a syllabus for the course. While we do not have instructors who teach our courses, we do have NROC member schools that teach the courses for credit and they have been approved through the AP College Board. For a complete list of NROC members, see: http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nrocnetwork/members.php
Contact
Monterey Institute for Technology and Education P.O. Box 890 Marina, CA 93933
We encourage all academic institutions to participate in the collaborative development of HippoCampus content and efforts to improve online education. If your school is interested in joining our team, please contact Terri Rowenhorst, NROC Membership Director, 719-783-0804, trowenhorst@montereyinstitute.org.
Textbook Publishers
Correlation to HippoCampus is a powerful competitive differentiator for your textbook. To have your book indexed and listed at HippoCampus, please contact Gary Lopez, Executive Director, 831-642-9459, glopez@montereyinstitute.org.
Advertisers
HippoCampus users are students, ages 16-21. If you are interested in advertising at HippoCampus, please contact Gary Lopez, Executive Director, 831-642-9459, glopez@montereyinstitute.org.
