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Open Educational Resources: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

How to find, adopt, adapt, and create open educational resources.

OERs

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.

This guide includes collections of OERs and other freely available online educational resources. Quality, accessibility, and copyright of the materials may vary.

Try the California State University: Course Materials Finder Tool  - Enter a book's ISBN to search for freely available related materials related to the book.

Featured Resources: Environmental Sciences OER

Finding OERs by Discipline

Open Textbooks

AU Press: Environmental Studies

  • open access books from Athabasca University

BC Campus Open Ed

  • Environment textbooks from British Columbia Open 

Bookboon.com - Environmental Science

  • free eBooks and textbooks that can be downloaded as a pdf, no registration needed.

 InTech - Environmental Sciences

  • open access books from IntechOpen

MERLOT Materials – Environment and Natural Resources

  • a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services 

MERLOT Open Access Textbooks - Environment

  • "access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers"

The National Academies Press (NAP)

  • textbooks on various environmental studies topics, available as freely downloadable PDFs.

OAPEN - Environmentalist Thought & Ideology

  • a collection of open access publications and a publishing platform

OER Commons Textbooks – Environmental Science 

  •  "public digital library of open educational resources"

Open Book Publishers- Environmental Studies

  • open access UK book publishing imprint

Pressbooks OER - Environmental Studies

  • rom BCcampus; Open Textbooks Adapted and Created by BC Faculty

Wikibooks - Applied Ecology

  • an open content textbook from Wikibooks

Wikibooks - Ecology

  • an open content textbook from Wikibooks
 

Open Courseware

Open Courseware

Open Textbook Library Climate Toolkit - A Resource Manual for Science and Action (Granshaw)

  • Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted

Earth in the Future

  • Penn State Earth 103N

ENVS 100 – Survey of Environmental Science

  • survey course on the science behind historical and current environmental issues from Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges  

MERLOT Resources – Environmental Science

  • a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services   

MIT Open Courseware - Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

  • courses, materials & teaching resources

MIT Open Courseware - Urban Studies and Planning

  • Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT

Open Learn - Environmental Studies

  • Open Learn provides 52 free online courses on environmental topics

Open Oregon Educational Resources - Environmental Science

  • course materials from Oregon community colleges and universities 

Open Yale - Environmental Politics & Lawcourse (John Wargo)

  • provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University

Penn State - OER Course Modules (Penn State, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences)

  • Repository of Open and Affordable Materials
 

General Environmental Science-related OER

General Environmental Science-related OER

Appropedia

  • a wiki site for collaborative solutions in sustainability, poverty reduction and international development

 OAOpen

  • resources for environmental science, engineering & technology

OER Commons

  • curated collection for Environmental Science

OER Commons

  • curated collection for Climate Education

Open learn: nature & environment resources

  • collection of free learning resources including expert insights, recorded talks, podcasts, interactives and courses

Lab manuals, Interactive materials & simulations

Lab manuals, Interactive materials & simulations

             *many of the simulations and videos are view/use only (i.e. not adaptable)

ClimateSim

  • This visualization of a gravity model was created with data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

Environmental Injustice: Evaluating the evidence

  • activity where students are introduced to the empirical, quantitative research purporting to demonstrate that environmental hazards are disproportionately sited in minority and low-income neighborhoods.

Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

  • NASA site on climate change and includes current data and visualizations

Marine Debris Tracker (Android)

  • "mobile application and tool that allows you to help make a difference by telling us when you find trash on our coastlines and waterways.”

SeaPhoto (iOS)

  • "This application provides access to over 1,650 high quality images of over 631 species of marine life of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, including over 130 species with detailed ecological information”