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Mountains to Sea Explores Environmental Learning

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Solar panels installed in the green forest

Dec 15, 2025

Renewable Energy Career Research Project

Piedmont IB Middle and Ranson IB Middle Schools teach students the International Baccalaureate curriculum in conjunction with NC ELA and CTE standards. All IB programs aim to develop internationally minded people who recognize their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet and help to create a better and more peaceful world. Moreover, this renewable…
Male common fruit fly (Drosophila Melanogaster) - about 2mm long - sitting on a blade of grass with green foliage background

Dec 15, 2025

Life Cycles of Drosophila

nquiry-based unit to help 7th-grade students understand the life cycles of drosophila and become comfortable with the science inquiry. Students will become comfortable using stereoscopes and observing patterns of different or recurring phenotypes in Drosophila. They will also practice putting Drosophila in chill comas and flipping them into new containers. In these lessons, students work together to create…
A student completes a marshmallow STEM challenge

Dec 15, 2025

The Marshmallow Challenge (STEM Education)

The Marshmallow Challenge is an engineering challenge that can be used in any content area or situation. In this challenge, students will work in groups of four to collaborate and build the tallest free-standing tower out of 30 strands of uncooked spaghetti, a meter of string, arm’s length of tape, and a marshmallow that must…
Christine Sudzina Schut looks through a microscope at a UNC Chapel Hill lab

Dec 15, 2025

Fruit fly unit sparks curiosity in science

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.⸺Over six weeks, students in Christine Sudzina Schut’s classroom at Culbreth Middle School with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools observed the life cycle of fruit flies through stereoscopes. The seventh-graders learned the research lab technique of inducing a chill coma in fruit flies for observation. They recorded their observations in data tables and discussed how environmental…
Educators in the Mountain to Sea professional development place-based learning institute show off their cardboard city

Dec 15, 2025

Mountains to Sea Explores Environmental Learning

RALEIGH, N.C.⸺On an overcast afternoon last December, 18 K-12 educators from eastern North Carolina and two pre-service undergrads from N.C. State University’s College of Education gathered outside the Walnut Creek Wetland Center to build a model of a climate-resilient city using cardboard, egg cartons and other recyclable materials. This exercise marked the conclusion of a semester-long professional…