This is a handout I have used to help faculty identify and use Open Educational Resources.

Austin Community College (ACC) Learn OER includes a series of self-paced online learning modules. The first nine modules will serve as an introduction to open educational resources (OER) and as an opportunity for further exploration and discovery of open education practices. The tenth module serves as a final assessment of your learning. Throughout the modules there are opportunities for you to test your knowledge and further explore a concept. The modules allow you to learn at your own pace. While you can follow the modules in any order, it is recommended that you start with Module 1 and progress through in order.

Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module/Geology of National Parks course. Students estimate travel times and costs of a driving/camping trip to visit national parks in Colorado.

In this activity students analyze the reasons why the Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted so long and was successful. Students watch a short clip from the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prizeabout the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Then students analyze primary sources to determine who participated in the boycott, who organized it, and what challenges boycott supporters faced. The teacher will need access to the filmEyes on the Prize, which is widely available in school and public libraries.

An open-source textbook covering vector calculus, ordinary and partial differential equations, and Fourier series. The textbook is used in a first-year graduate level course in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. It undergoes extensive revisions annually, but is relatively complete.

Students engage in hands-on, true-to-life research experiences on air quality topics chosen for personal interest through a unit composed of one lesson and five associated activities. Using a project-based learning approach suitable for secondary science classrooms and low-cost air quality monitors, students gain the background and skills needed to conduct their own air quality research projects. The curriculum provides: 1) an introduction to air quality science, 2) data collection practice, 3) data analysis practice, 4) help planning and conducting a research project and 5) guidance in interpreting data and presenting research in professional poster format. The comprehensive curriculum requires no pre-requisite knowledge of air quality science or engineering. This curriculum takes advantage of low-cost, next-generation, open-source air quality monitors called Pods. These monitors were developed in a mechanical engineering lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and are used for academic research as well as education and outreach. The monitors are made available for use with this curriculum through AQ-IQ Kits that may be rented from the university by teachers. Alternatively, nearly the entire unit, including the student-directed projects, could also be completed without an air quality monitor. For example, students can design research projects that utilize existing air quality data instead of collecting their own, which is highly feasible since much data is publically available. In addition, other low-cost monitors could be used instead of the Pods. Also, the curriculum is intentionally flexible, so that the lesson and its activities can be used individually. See the Other section for details about the Pods and ideas for alternative equipment, usage without air quality monitors, and adjustments to individually teach the lesson and activities.

In this module, students engage in a visual demonstration on the causes & effects of air pollutants on air quality and kinesthetic activities on particulate matter & visibility.

Watch alpha particles escape from a polonium nucleus, causing radioactive alpha decay. See how random decay times relate to the half life.

An interview conducted by the ACLU in March of 2005, preceding a Supreme Court hearing in the case of Castle Rock, Colorado v. Gonzales. This case determined the accountability of local law enforcement for failing to enforce court orders that protect victims of abuse by a spouse or acquaintance.

presents a travel itinerary of 58 historic places across Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It includes forts built to protect mail routes and settlers, missions and churches, prehistoric cliff dwellings, trading posts, petroglyphs (from the petrified forest), pit house villages, and Indian villages home to the Anasazi, Sinagua, Zuni, and other Native American tribes.

Checklist that can be used as a guide in analyzing the assignment examples

Having students follow animal tracks (even just people, dogs, or squirrels) and investigating how tracks are made is a fun and exciting way to develop critical thinking, measurement, and graphing skills.

In this lesson, students explore the importance of albedo (or reflectivity) to penguins and the surfaces they inhabit and learn how penguin colonies may be mapped using satellites.

This collection was inspired by Ellen Wolpert's article about anti-bias work with younger students. Her article suggests that teachers should keep a collection of non-stereotypical photos of people doing regular things that can be referenced to stimulate class discussion or address biased language with young children.

The photos in this growing collection are organized into (Google Drive) folders inspired by categories mentioned by Ms. Wolpert: Race, Age, Physical Abilities, Gender Roles, Families/Sexual Orientation, Jobs, and Ethnicity. Each folder contains different photographs curated from various Creative Commons websites, including Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels. Currently there are 80 photographs in the collection. They have been assembled here for your convenience and represent many hours of searching, downloading, and editing.

Reference: Wolpert, E. (2006). Photo picture cards: A key tool for the anti-bias classroom. In Lee, E., Menkart, D., & Okazawa-Rey, M. (Eds.) Beyond heroes and holidays: A practical guide to K-12 anti-racist, multicultural education and staff development (3rd ed., pp. 211-214).

The eBook “Applications of Plant Pathology in Genebank Collections” was developed in part by USDA-ARS and by grant 2020-70003-30930 from the USDA-NIFA-Higher Education Challenge Grant Program. Additional chapters will be added to this eBook when they are available. This eBook contains chapters that can be accessed in any order. Click on “Contents” in the upper left corner and then expand “Main Body” to access chapter titles; scrolling may be necessary to view all chapter titles. Chapters can also be navigated by using arrows at the bottom of each page. Each chapter has text, video and/or interactive content on a single page.

A research article with information on the differences between rubrics, checklists, and rating scales. It includes helpful tips for quality rubric design.

This lesson sequence guides students to learn about the geography and the unique characteristics of the Arctic, including vegetation, and people who live there. Students use Google Earth to explore the Arctic and learn about meteorological observations in the Arctic, including collecting their own data in hands-on experiments. This is the first part of a three-part curriculum about Arctic climate.

In this jigsaw activity, students explore meteorological data collected from Eureka, Canada to try to decide when would be the best time for an Arctic visit.