These free, classroom-tested middle school lesson plans engage students of art, music, and science with the water cycle using Hubbard Brook data. They are designed with visually impaired students in mind.

This five-part lesson explores the impacts of different forest management methods on bird abundance and species diversity. Students compare and contrast the impacts of clearcutting, group selection, and no harvesting on forest succession.

How has the timing of leaf fall changed over time? Engage your students in tracking leaf coloration and leaf drop in the trees in their backyards or schoolyard.

This teaching guide offers content information, classroom lessons, experimental activities, outdoor fieldwork, and data analysis suggestions that will introduce acid rain and build knowledge about the complex interactions between acid rain and ecosystems.

Students will count and identify spiders, caterpillars, and other insects present on the undersides of leaves to get a sense of what food is available to songbirds during the breeding season.

How does tree removal impact water flowing out of a watershed? Students will graph and analyze Hubbard Brook data to understand this question.

What influences the survival of sugar maple seedlings? Students will use Hubbard brook data to better understand the life cycle of these trees prized for their sweet sap and iconic, colorful foliage.

How do snow depth and density correspond with the water equivalent of snowpack? Students will examine Hubbard Brook snow depth data and then develop their own methods for conducting a similar study at their schools in wintertime.

How does climate change affect lake ecology? Students will graph and analyze 50 years of ice cover data collected at Mirror Lake, NH.

How do different forest management practices affect bird abundance and species diversity? Students will analyze data on different harvesting practices and impacts on migratory birds.

Students will create model caterpillars and temporarily attach them to vegetation to investigate predation by birds, small mammals, and invertebrates.

This lesson combines text, images, video, and data to teach about avian ecology and reproductive strategies of the Black-throated Blue Warbler.

Students will read a published account of bird research and learn to identify the hypotheses and study design described in the article.

Students will identify arthropods along a transect line, and graph and analyze data to learn about the food available to neotropical migratory bird species.

How does less snow impact soil temperature? Students will graph and analyze snow depth and soil frost data to explore how a decrease in snowpack might affect forest floor dynamics.

Students will learn how to organize and interpret real, messy, scientific data from Hubbard Brook’s long-term migratory bird surveys.

In a series of four lessons, students will study lichen ecology and learn about lichen as a bioindicator of air quality and old growth habitat.

What do moose require in terms of energy and nutrition? Students will mimic moose browsing patterns in the forest and investigate the impact of browsing on shrub structure and bird nest siting.

Students will learn the basics of neotropical bird migration, sketch migratory flyways, and learn how researchers study this complex phenomenon.

This introductory lesson to New England’s migratory birds features four species found in our region: American Redstart, Bicknell’s Thrush, Black‐throated Blue Warbler, and Blackpoll Warbler.