Here is a list of some labs that are commonly done in AP® Environmental Science by CED unit. You will also need basic lab supplies such as beakers, graduated cylinders, etc.
Introduction to the Course
This lab is often done during the first week or two as an introduction. However, the topic is also covered in Unit 5 and can be done there instead.
- Tragedy of the Commons: This lab has many great versions.
- Colored marshmallows, goldfish crackers, or candy are favorites. Some teachers use beads to be reusable. If you have large classes, marshmallows are the cheapest.
- Straws or chopsticks
- Tape
- Paper plates or paper towels
Unit 1: The Living World: Ecosystems
- Ecocolumns
- This is a favorite lab for kids and gives them long-term data collection and analysis. You can do ecocolumns on a budget and build up your supplies of probeware/sensors over time. Click for recommendations for cheap and more expensive supplies depending on your budget.
If you have probeware (sensors), you can use with Ecocolumns in unit 1 and also later with Water Quality Testing in chapter 8. Some teachers also use probeware when studying aquatic ecosystems in unit 1.
Read this post for a review of Vernier sensors
Read this post for a review of Pasco sensors
Read this post for a review of Hanna pH probes
- Owl Pellets
- Large (preferred) or small owl pellets. One per pair or group.
- Gloves
- Dissection trays or paper plates
- Tweezers
- Reference sheets
- Primary Productivity and Light in the Ocean Lab
- Glasses Template from the teacher’s guide
- File folders to make glasses sturdy
- Blue plastic film-click for this one from Amazon that works well
- Colored felt-black, red, yellow, green, blue, orange and purple
- Color pictures of various deep sea organisms-found in the teacher’s guide. These can be printed in color or uploaded for kids to access online. My students accessed the pictures on Google Classroom
- Colored pencils
- Paper clips (optional)
- Productivity–there are many versions of this lab also.
- One lab uses grass seeds, potting soil and pots
- Another lab uses bottles of water with algae and dissolved oxygen probes
- I do a video virtual lab
- You can also purchase a kit.
Unit 2: The Living World: Biodiversity
- Biodiversity: There are many varieties of this lab that are used including:
- Parking lot biodiversity lab
- Needs no supplies
- Parking lot biodiversity lab
- Biodiversity of plants with transects and quadrats
- Quadrats (sampling squares–1 meter is great or smaller)
- Can make sampling squares, or use pieces of string or buy collapsible hoola hoops
- Quadrats (sampling squares–1 meter is great or smaller)
- Tree biodiversity in forests (if you live by a forest).
- Need tree ID reference sheets or download free app “Seek”
- Winogradsky Columns
Kit from Carolina or other science supply companies. You could even make on your own using old 1 or 2 liter bottles.
- Pill Bug Lab for Range of Tolerance
Pill Bugs–collect or purchase.
Unit 3: Populations
- Cemetery Lab for human population studies
- No pictures needed if you can walk to an old cemetery
- Or, pictures of tombstones taken from a local cemetery
- You can purchase this collection which has pictures from different parts of the country along with historical and celebrity graves.
- Or, simulate using paper tombstones in lab, you may want to decorate the lab with Halloween decorations. The dollar store is a good source.
- Or, use a cemetery database
- Plastic sleeves to save paper for some of the tables and charts.
- Vis-A-Vis pens or thin Expo markers if using laminated copies/plastic sleeves
- Bubble Lab
Bubble Solution-one per group
Unit 4: Earth Systems and Resources
- Soil Quality Labs. There are two main soil labs that are essential:
- Chemistry of Soil
- Use a Test Kit (best) or a soil meter.
- Alternately, You can also take soil measurements with the ecocolumn lab instead of doing the chemistry of soil lab.
- Physical Properties of Soil.
- Can be purchased in a kit
- Or individually purchasing materials such as sand, soil, gravel and plastic cups.
- Chemistry of Soil
- Soil Profiles made out of food items
- Plastic parfait cups: one per student
- Vanilla and chocolate pudding: quantity depends on number of students.
- Oreo cookies
- Sprinkles
- Gummy worms: 2 per student
- Spoons
Unit 5: Land and Water Use
- Tragedy of the Commons: This lab has many great versions.
- Colored marshmallows, goldfish crackers, or candy are favorites. Some teachers use beads to be reusable. If you have large classes, marshmallows are the cheapest.
- Straws or chopsticks
- Tape
- Paper plates or paper towels
- Trees, Forests and Deforestation
- Cardboard box
- Straws-can be paper straws or other eco-friendly straw
- 2 sewing measuring tapes per group
- Salinization Lab: For this lab you need
- Salt
- Petri dishes or ziploc bags
- Distilled water
- Plastic pipets
- Seeds. Peas, Mung Beans, and Radish are all good options
- Climate Change and Cities Experimental Design Lab
- IR Temperature guns OR regular thermometers/sensor
- Cookie Mining
- Generic chocolate chip cookies (1 per pair of students)
- Name-brand chocolate chip cookies
- Extra cookies to eat when finished
- Paper clips
- Toothpicks
- Scales-pocket or regular (optional)
Unit 6: Energy Resources and Consumption
- Kill-A-Watt Lab
- Need several kill-a-watt meters. I use 10 of them for kids to rotate stations
- You also need various electronic devices.
- Vernier-Solar Thermal Exploration Kit (Teaches about active solar and experimental design)
- Solar Cookers (usually done after the AP® exam due to time requirements)
- Aluminum foil–a big restaurant-sized roll from Costco or Amazon will make a lot of solar cookers (40-50 of them)
- Packing tape or duct tape
- Masking tape
- Lots of boxes: I ask the food service on campus for empty boxes
- Empty cans to test water temperature
- Plastic wrap
- Thermometers
- IR Temperature guns (optional)
Unit 7: Atmospheric Pollution
- Air Pollution Labs. There are a few good ones to choose from.
- Air Pollution Kit
- Ozone Lab using Test Strips
- Design a scrubber kit
- Air Particulates Experimental Design Lab
- Petri dishes-2 per student, if possible
- Vaseline
- Tape-blue painter’s tape is best as it can be removed easily to allow reuse of the dishes.
- Stereoscopes are great, but if you don’t have them, use the magnify+light feature on student smart phones or download a free app. Microscopes can also work using a low objective.
- Poster paper with markers (optional) for lab assessment
Unit 8: Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution
- Toxins (Serial Dilultion and LD-50)
- Well plate
- Plastic Pipet
- Beaker for tap water
- Toothpicks
- Dropper bottle of a dye/stain/coloring such as a Food Grade Dye like FD&C Red Dye #40 Do not use regular food coloring as it dilutes much too quickly
- Biomagnification Activity: Many great versions of the lap exist
- One version of the lab uses colored paperclips
- Another version uses pieces of laminated paper (shown below)
- Another version uses candy
- Water Quality Lab
This is an expensive, but essential lab. You can do this lab several ways:- An inexpensive kit for the lab
- If you have a pond or creek to walk to, you may want a portable kit and a couple of hip waders and macroinvertebrate collection devices or kits.
- Probes or sensors are more expensive initially, but end up saving money over multiple years. See this post for supply ideas for an in-class lab.
- Fecal Coliform Tests. This is a great kit that uses petri dishes. This is another method that uses petrifilm.
- My favorite inexpensive dissolved oxygen meter is the Milwaukee Dissolved Oxygen Probe. It rarely needs calibration and lasts for years. Also, fairly inexpensive (for a DO meter) on Amazon.
- Biological Oxygen Demand (sometimes done with a water quality lab)
- I do as a virtual lab
- If you do as a regular lab, you will need a dissolved oxygen test kit or dissolved oxygen probes
- LD-50 Lab: You can do this lab many ways.
- Use salinization lab results so you aren’t taking time for a new lab.
- Purchase a kit.
- Purchase individual supplies for the lab
- Macroinvertebrates such as brine shrimp or daphnia, or seeds
- Some kind of toxin
- Beakers/cups etc.
- Oil Spill Cleanup
- Plastic containers or metal pans to hold water and simulate the ocean. One per group.
- Cotton Balls
- Straws
- Plastic pipets
- Cups or Beakers
- Vegetable or mineral oil
- Detergent
Unit 9: Global Change
- Tree-Rings and Climate Change Lab
- You can purchase tree cookies on Amazon or Etsy. Its easier to buy them, but kids get more out of the lab if you can find local tree cookies.
- Rulers or Calipers
- Pins
- Simulated tree cores (pages 6 and 7 of this document)
- Hand lens (optional)
- Ocean Acidification Experimental Design Lab
- Plastic cups: 4-5 per group
- Shells (ask kids to donate or ask seafood restaurants for oyster, clams and mussel shells). One small shell or piece of a larger shell per group.
- Vinegar or another acid
- pH meters or pH strips
- Scales-pocket or regular
- Plastic pipets
Other Items
- Chalk Drawing: The best chalk is from IKEA–seriously. A few boxes will last the entire year or more. Since I teach 170 students in APES, this is the best option for me. Neon Expo Markers are another good option.
Other Basic Supplies
I use these items frequently for many labs
Sharpies (need 10 black for the year)
Spoons (need 1 box for labs)
De-chlorine drops for fish tanks
Filters for fish tank
Aquarium light bulbs
Fish food
Colored markers (Crayola or similar) for lab conclusion posters
Painter’s tape for marking beakers, lab apparatus
Hand Sanitizer-large container for classroom
Batteries for various sensors and probes
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