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Many teachers and science educators are using the film in their lessons, including Mark Jones who has posted a lesson plan here.

You can download a free copy of the film from the vimeo site. You will need to sign up to vimeo to do this - a process which takes a couple of minutes. The download option will not show up on vimeo unless you sign in as a member. The file is a big one (about 900 MB) and may take some time to download. Sorry about this, but the result is you get a better-than-DVD quality film to show in class for free.

If for some reason you really can't download the film from vimeo and you'd like me to send you a DVD copy of the film, drop me a line at alom.shaha(at)gmail.com and I'll get one to you as soon as I can.
If you use this film or the website in your teaching, PLEASE leave a comment below - it will really help with my evaluation of the project. Any tips or suggestions for classroom use can also be shared via the comments section.

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Many teachers and science educators are using the film in their lessons, including Mark Jones who has posted a lesson plan here. You can download a free copy of the film from the vimeo site. You will need to sign up to vimeo to do this - a process which takes a couple of minutes.

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https://youtu.be/hud8SPCcfu0

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https://youtu.be/ysa5OBhXz-Q

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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0Bx7D1k0rrdRpbkVQRjhaRU13UFU

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https://www.jct.ie/science/resources

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https://www.scoilnet.ie/go-to-post-primary/collections/junior-cycle/energy/

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https://www.seai.ie/teaching-sustainability/post-primary-school/energy-in-action/

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Nature of science planning document - Copy

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Collaborative Planning Doc template - Copy

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Making accurate measurements planning document - Copy

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https://www.activescienceresources.com/

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Inquiry-Based activity on filtration.

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Summary Students are asked to design methods to filter water using ordinary materials, while also considering their designs' material and cost efficiencies. They learn about the importance of water and its role in our everyday lives. They come to understand what must occur each day so that they can have clean water.
This engineering curriculum meets Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Engineering Connection

Clean water is not available in all parts of the world. Many people live with polluted water that is unhealthy to drink and bathe in. Civil, environmental , materials and mechanical engineers all contribute to developing technologies and systems to purify unclean water. Purifying water can be done easily if it is a small amount that is fairly clean, but larger amounts that are very polluted are much more complicated. Typical steps for full water treatment include aeration, coagulation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection.

Learning Objectives

After this activity, students should be able to:

Understand how filtration works.

Create creative design methods.

Problem solve given a design challenge.

Apply mathematics (multiplication) reinforcement.

Engage in teamwork to solve a challenge.

Educational Standards

Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.

All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).

In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.

NGSS Performance Expectation

Click to view other curriculum aligned to this Performance Expectation

This activity focuses on the following Three Dimensional Learning aspects of NGSS:

Science & Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

Define a simple design problem that can be solved through the development of an object, tool, process, or system and includes several criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

Possible solutions to a problem are limited by available materials and resources (constraints). The success of a designed solution is determined by considering the desired features of a solution (criteria). Different proposals for solutions can be compared on the basis of how well each one meets the specified criteria for success or how well each takes the constraints into account.

People's needs and wants change over time, as do their demands for new and improved technologies.

Suggest an alignment not listed above

Materials List

1 liter of water prepared in advance with soil and sand in it until it is thin but relatively opaque

3 test tubes prepared with the water standards "A," "B" and "C" (C is filtered through some grass, B is filtered through a coffee filter, and A is filtered through 2 coffee filters with a paper towel in the middle)

cotton balls

gauze squares

tulle/netting

tissue

paper towels

coffee filters

gravel (aquarium gravel works great)

sand

3 test tubes per student

test tube racks

graduated cylinders

Design Components Worksheet

Worksheets and Attachments
Visit [www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/water_filtration] to print or download.

Introduction/Motivation

One of our most valuable and often overlooked resources is water. We can survive for a few weeks without food, but only a few days without water. Having clean water to drink is a luxury. The water that eventually comes out of our faucets sometimes does not start off being safe to drink. In most cases, it has gone through a water treatment plant designed by engineers prior to reaching our faucets.

Procedure

Background

This is a great activity for students to experience some "real-life" engineering.

Most any materials in a typical classroom can be adapted as filtration materials.

Water from lakes and rivers often has contaminants that make it unfit for drinking. The water may contain dirt, rocks and other objects that can be easily identified. Water may also contain bacteria and other microscopic organisms that cannot be seen easily. For these reasons, water that is delivered to our homes must go through a water treatment process. This is typically a five-part process that consists of aeration, coagulation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection. This activity is only concerned with filtration, which removes most but not all of the impurities from the water. Make sure students know that in this activity the filtered water is still unfit to drink.
Recommended Resources:
Information on the water treatment process and drinking water standards: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water.

Information on different types of filters and filtration processes: https://www.thoughtco.com/filtration-definition-4144961.

Before the Activity

With the Students

1. Engineering Challenge: Tell the students they have been hired by (your last name) Water Supply Company. With the ongoing drought, not enough water is available for all the things we need to supply - people, animals and plants. Tell them that they will each be given a sample of the dirty water they have remaining, and show them the tubes "A," "B" and "C." A is nearly ready for human use, B is nearly ready for animal use, and C is nearly ready to feed the plants. Remind them that no one must taste anything in the lab. They will be paid for their supply of filtered water: A gets $10 per ml, B gets $5 per ml, and C gets $1 per ml.

2. Have students complete the worksheet to make sure they understand the activity purpose, and to help them think about the components of engineering design.

3. Put trays of materials in front of the students. Let them decide in teams what materials they would like to use to filter their water. To challenge students, include one of the following constraints:

Limit the amount of materials allowed for the design.

Assign a price per unit of material and give students a budget to work within.

1. Have students draw schematics of the layers. Once completed, give each team 25 ml of the dirty water to begin to filter in their test tubes.

2. Once filtering is complete, have them bring the test tubes to you for observation. Decide if the water is A, B or C grade and help them measure their sample in a graduated cylinder. They must return to their desks and do the math to come up with their $ value. Have students put their $ values on the board.

Assessment

Activity Embedded Assessment

Have students complete the Design Components Worksheet to assess their understanding of the activity and to encourage them to consider the design components involved in design a water filtration system. Sample answers are provided on the Design Components Worksheet Answer Key.

Post-Activity Assessment

Use the attached Rubric for Performance Assessment to evaluate students' design projects using criteria for the final filtering system and teamwork effort.

Investigating Questions

What was the best filtering agent and why?

What are other ways we purify our water?

Design a package for your "clean" water.

Safety Issues

Make sure students know that in this activity the filtered water is still unfit to drink.

Contributors Erin Santini; Erik Rushton

Copyright © 2013 by Regents of the University of Colorado; original © 2004 Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Supporting Program Center for Engineering Educational Outreach, Tufts University

Last modified: October 24, 2019

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Water Filtration Project: Make Your Own Water Filters - Activity

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Students are asked to design methods to filter water using ordinary materials, while also considering their designs' material and cost efficiencies. They learn about the importance of water and its role in our everyday lives. They come to understand what must occur each day so that they can have clean water.

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Arms and link model for predicting ratio of elements in compounds.

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Arms and link model for predicting ratio of elements in compounds.

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What is the arms and link method?

The arms and link method is a simple way for students to learn how to write chemical formula. Each chemical species is drawn so that the number of arms matches its combining power or valency.

Metals are drawn with arms to the right and non-metals with arms to the left.

For example magnesium metal, chemical symbol Mg has a combining power of 2 and has two arms drawn to the right.

Chlorine is a non-metal. It has the chemical symbol of Cl and has a combining power of 1 and is drawn with one arm in the opposite direction.

A squiggly 'link' is drawn to link the arms of the different chemical groups.
Simply keep adding chemical groups until all the arms match up! Watch the video below.
The number of individual chemical species is then counted and the chemical formula quickly determined.

If there is more than one type of chemical in a compound the number is written as a subscript. There are two chlorine atoms so a small ₂ is used in the formula.

The chemical formula of magnesium chloride is MgCl ₂

Using a simple Periodic Table, students are able to quickly relate the group number to the combining power or valency of an element. The combining power of polyatomic groups can also quickly be shown. See Chemical formula worksheets for International spelling (IUPAC).

This method has a big advantage of simplicity and can be taught to junior high or middle school students. They do not become confused with ionic charges or superscripts. These concepts can be introduced later on.

Using arms and links to write chemical formula

The main advantage of using the arms-link method is that students are not confused with ionic charges which can be introduced later. All students, from low ability to high achievers, can quickly learn to write chemical formula. Refer to Table 1 for specific examples.
Table 1. Determining Chemical Formula by the arms-link method

Element or polyatomic group

Element or polyatomic group

Compound

Chemical formula

Chemical name

NaCl

Sodium chloride

MgO

Magnesium oxide

Na ₂ O

Sodium oxide

MgCl ₂

Magnesium chloride

Mg(OH) ₂

Magnesium hydroxide

Al ₂(SO ₄) ₃

Aluminum sulfate

NH ₄NO ₃

Ammonium nitrate

AlPO ₄

Aluminum phosphate

MgCO ₃

Magnesium carbonate

Further questions

1. What is a polyatomic group?

A polyatomic group is a group of elements that are chemically bonded together. They act together as one.
Examples
Hydroxide group,

Carbonate, group,

Nitrate group,

2. When are brackets needed?

Brackets are only used in a chemical formula if the number of polyatomic groups is greater than one.
Examples
a) Sodium hydroxide, NaOH

The polyatomic group is the hydroxide, OH group. Since it only appears once no brackets are needed.

b) Magnesium hydroxide, Mg(OH) ₂

The polyatomic group is the hydroxide, OH group. It appears twice, so brackets are needed.

c) Magnesium nitride, Mg ₃N ₂

There are no polyatomic groups in magnesium nitride, so no brackets are needed.

Chemical Formula Worksheets

For more help download the Chemical Formula Worksheets

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The arms and link method is a simple way for students to learn how to write chemical formula. Each chemical species is drawn so that the number of arms matches its combining power or valency. Metals are drawn with arms to the right and non-metals with arms to the left.

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You will need

One small empty plastic soda or water bottle

1/2 cup of vinegar

Small balloon

Baking soda

Funnel or piece of paper

What to do

1. Carefully pour the vinegar into the bottle.

2. This is the tricky part: Loosen up the balloon by stretching it a few times and then use the funnel to fill it a bit more than half way with baking soda. If you don't have a funnel you can make one using the paper and some tape.

3. Now carefully put the neck of the balloon all the way over the neck of the bottle without letting any baking soda into the bottle.

4. Ready? Lift the balloon up so that the baking soda falls from the balloon into the bottle and mixes with the vinegar. Watch the fizz-inflator at work!

How does it work?

The baking soda and the vinegar create an ACID-BASE reaction and the two chemicals work together to create a gas, (carbon dioxide) Gasses need a lot of room to spread out and the carbon dioxide starts to fill the bottle, and then moves into the balloon to inflate it.

The project above is a DEMONSTRATION. To make it a true experiment, you can try to answer these questions:

1. Does water temperature affect how fast the balloon fills up.

2. Does the size of the bottle affect how much the balloon fills?

3. Can the amount the balloon fills-up be controlled by the amount of vinegar or baking soda?

Science Bob

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One small empty plastic soda or water bottle 1/2 cup of vinegar Small balloon Baking soda Funnel or piece of paper Carefully pour the vinegar into the bottle. This is the tricky part: Loosen up the balloon by stretching it a few times and then use the funnel to fill it a bit more than half way with baking soda.

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Cw10

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'Compostable cup for your coffee sound good? It all depends on where it ends up'

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Recyclable and compostable options are only truly beneficial if they end up, and are processed, in the correct waste facility, writes industry expert Brian O'Sullivan.

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Chemical World 1-4

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water cycle

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Most of us probably never think of ourselves as being passengers on-board a spinning planet that whips around on its axis of rotation once every 24 hours, or that travels 970 million kilometres on its 365-day journey around the sun.

f the earth's axis of rotation was perpendicular to the sun-earth line, we would have no solstices and no strong seasonal effects. However, the 23.5o tilt of the earth's axis gives rise to different orientations of earth relative to the sun during the year, giving us both.

At the summer solstice, the northern hemisphere is tipped most directly towards the sun, leading to more concentrated sunlight and shorter shadows at noon. We observe the sun as reaching its maximum height in the sky and the day of the solstice has the greatest number of daylight hours in the year.

On the same day in the southern hemisphere, which is tipped away from the sun, the sun's rays at noon are less concentrated and shadows are longer - it is their mid-winter. The situation in the two hemispheres is reversed at the winter solstice.

The exact moment of the summer solstice, which occurs between June 20 and June 22, varies from year to year because of the influence of other planets on earth's orbit and the slight wobble of its axis. This year, the summer solstice is on June 21. In Dublin, sunrise is at 04:57 and sunset at 21.57, giving just over 17 hours of daylight.

Be glad we don't live on Venus, where the very small axial tilt of 3o provides no seasonal respite from the 462oC temperature caused by its proximity to the sun and its runaway greenhouse effect.

Professor Lorraine Hanlon, is a professor at the School of Physics, University College Dublin

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Summer solstice the longest day of the year but why?

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Most of us probably never think of ourselves as being passengers on-board a spinning planet that whips around on its axis of rotation once every 24 hours, or that travels 970 million kilometres on its 365-day journey around the sun.

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Solar system activities. Useful moons activity

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Well presented info about life of our sun with questions included

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Scripted podcast idea about the sun

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Solar energy competition

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All planets atmosphere compared

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Looking inside planets

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Image: Uranus appears as a crescent as Voyager 2 soars past, starting its journey out of the solar system. "We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe."

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Comparison of amospheric gases Earth, Venus and Mars using bean bags.

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Sun earth moon model

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Preparation

The activity is structured into four parts: 1) What do you already know? 2) The matching game 3) Revolving Earth 4) Sun-Earth-Moon mobile.

Print the mobile activity worksheet for each student. Prepare the listed materials. For the matching game, print one copy of the game sheet per three students onto stiff card paper. Cut out all the cards before the activity.

Image: Siyavula Education (not to scale)

Activity 1: What do you already know?

Step 1: Provide each child with an A4 sheet of paper and some colouring pencils.

Step 2: Encourage students to draw the Sun, Earth and Moon and to write any words they associate with them. Discuss what the students have drawn/written.

Step 3: Write their ideas on an A2 sheet of paper and display it in the classroom. Explain to the students that they can add to this whenever they like, either in words or drawings.

Activity 2: Solar System matching game

Step 1: The students play a matching game to learn some differences between the Sun, Earth and Moon. Explain how the matching game works: in groups of three, students match the picture cards with the cards that have the matching texts. The game finishes when all the card pairs have been found.

Step 2: Before starting the game, encourage the students to lay out all the cards and look at all of the images and texts on the cards.

Step 3: Afterwards, show students the correct pairing of the cards (use the answer sheet of the game). Then, discuss what the students learnt about the properties of Sun, Earth and Moon covering the following points:

It is much hotter on the Sun than on Earth, because the Sun is a star.

Stars are much hotter and brighter than planets.

The temperature on Earth is hotter than the temperature water freezes, but colder than the temperature water boils, giving us liquid water, and therefore oceans, on Earth.

The temperature on the Moon can range from very cold to very hot.

The Sun is more than a hundred times wider than the Earth.

The Earth is about four times wider than the Moon.

Activity 3: The revolving Earth

Step 1: Draw a picture of the Earth in the middle of the board. Explain that the Moon revolves around the Earth, and then add it to the drawing. Now explain that both the Earth and the Moon revolve around the Sun. Draw this on the board as well.

Step 2: Invite three students to come to the front of the class. Explain that student 1 is the Moon, student 2 is the Earth and student 3 is the Sun. Encourage the students to enact the movement of the Moon around the Earth and the spinning of the Earth on its axis while it revolves around the Sun. Explain that the Moon, a natural satellite, revolves around the Earth, a planet, and both revolve around the Sun, a star.

Step 3: Explain that they are going to make a mobile showing this.

Activity 4: The Sun-Earth-Moon mobile

Step 1: Now distribute the Sun-Earth-Moon mobile worksheet and explain the ten steps to making the Sun mobile. Talk through the instructions together.

Step 2: The wooden skewers are used for the top bar. Help the students tie the string to the wooden skewers. Using the drawing, demonstrate how to put the rest of the mobile together.

Step 3: Hang the mobiles in the classroom. Check that the mobiles they have made work properly. Does the Earth revolve around the Sun and the Moon around the Earth?

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The activity is structured into four parts: 1) What do you already know? 2) The matching game 3) Revolving Earth 4) Sun-Earth-Moon mobile. Print the mobile activity worksheet for each student. Prepare the listed materials. For the matching game, print one copy of the game sheet per three students onto stiff card paper.

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Advertisement. EnchantedLearning.com is a user-supported site.

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Click here to learn more.

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The Planets (plus the Dwarf Planet Pluto)

Our solar system consists of the sun, eight planets, moons, many dwarf planets (or plutoids), an asteroid belt, comets, meteors, and others. The sun is the center of our solar system; the planets, their moons, a belt of asteroids, comets, and other rocks and gas orbit the sun.

The eight planets that orbit the sun are (in order from the sun): Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Another large body is Pluto, now classified as a dwarf planet or plutoid. A belt of asteroids (minor planets made of rock and metal) lies between Mars and Jupiter. These objects all orbit the sun in roughly circular orbits that lie in the same plane, the ecliptic (Pluto is an exception; it has an elliptical orbit tilted over 17° from the ecliptic).

Easy ways to remember the order of the planets (plus Pluto) are the mnemonics: "My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas" and "My Very Easy Method Just Simplifies Us Naming Planets" The first letter of each of these words represents a planet - in the correct order.

The largest planet is Jupiter. It is followed by Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and finally, tiny Pluto (the largest of the dwarf planets). Jupiter is so big that all the other planets could fit inside it.

The Inner Planets vs. the Outer Planets
The inner planets (those planets that orbit close to the sun) are quite different from the outer planets (those planets that orbit far from the sun).

The inner planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They are relatively small, composed mostly of rock, and have few or no moons.

The outer planets include: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (a dwarf planet). They are mostly huge, mostly gaseous, ringed, and have many moons (again, the exception is Pluto, the dwarf planet, which is small, rocky, and has four moons).

Temperatures on the Planets
Generally, the farther from the Sun, the cooler the planet. Differences occur when the greenhouse effect warms a planet (like Venus) surrounded by a thick atmosphere.

Density of the Planets
The outer, gaseous planets are much less dense than the inner, rocky planets.

The Earth is the densest planet. Saturn is the least dense planet; it would float on water.

The Mass of the Planets
Jupiter is by far the most massive planet; Saturn trails it. Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, and Pluto are orders of magnitude less massive.

Gravitational Forces on the Planets
The planet with the strongest gravitational attraction at its surface is Jupiter. Although Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are also very massive planets, their gravitational forces are about the same as Earth. This is because the gravitational force a planet exerts upon an object at the planet's surface is proportional to its mass and to the inverse of the planet's radius squared.

A Day on Each of the Planets
A day is the length of time that it takes a planet to rotate on its axis (360°). A day on Earth takes almost 24 hours.

The planet with the longest day is Venus; a day on Venus takes 243 Earth days. (A day on Venus is longer than its year; a year on Venus takes only 224.7 Earth days).

The planet with the shortest day is Jupiter; a day on Jupiter only takes 9.8 Earth hours! When you observe Jupiter from Earth, you can see some of its features change.

The Average Orbital Speed of the Planets
As the planets orbit the Sun, they travel at different speeds. Each planet speeds up when it is nearer the Sun and travels more slowly when it is far from the Sun (this is Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion).

The Planets in Our Solar System

Planet (or Dwarf Planet)

Distance from the Sun(Astronomical Units

miles
km)

Period of Revolution Around the Sun
(1 planetary year)

Period of Rotation
(1 planetary day)

Mass
(kg)

Diameter(miles

km)

Apparent size
from Earth

Temperature(K

Range or Average)

Number of Moons

Mercury
0.39 AU, 36 million miles
57.9 million km

87.96 Earth days

58.7 Earth days

3.3 x 10 23

3,031 miles
4,878 km

5-13 arc seconds

100-700 K
mean=452 K

0

Mars
1.524 AU
141.6 million miles
227.9 million km

686.98 Earth days

24.6 Earth hours
=1.026 Earth days

6.42 x 10 23

4,222 miles
6,787 km

4-25 arc seconds

150-310 K

2

Saturn
9.539 AU
886.7 million miles
1,427.0 million km

29.456 Earth years

10.2 Earth hours

5.69 x 10 26

74,600 miles
120,660 km

15-21 arc seconds
excluding rings

88 K

62 (30 unnamed)

Planet (or Dwarf Planet)

Distance from the Sun(Astronomical Units

miles
km)

Period of Revolution Around the Sun
(1 planetary year)

Period of Rotation
(1 planetary day)

Mass
(kg)

Diameter(miles

km)

Apparent size
from Earth

Temperature(K

Range or Average)

Number of Moons

Another Planet?
In 2005, a large object beyond Pluto was observed in the Kuiper belt.

A few astronomers think that there might be another planet or companion star orbiting the Sun far beyond the orbit of Pluto. This distant planet/companion star may or may not exist. The hypothesized origin of this hypothetical object is that a celestial object, perhaps a hard-to-detect cool, brown dwarf star (called Nemesis), was captured by the Sun's gravitational field. This planet is hypothesized to exist because of the unexplained clumping of some long-period comet's orbits. The orbits of these far-reaching comets seem to be affected by the gravitational pull of a distant, Sun-orbiting object.

Planet Activities and Quizzes
Planet Coloring pages

An interactive puzzle on the Solar System.

Find It!, a quiz on the planets.

A fill-in-the-blank (cloze) activity on the Solar System - or go to the answers.

Solar System Model to make.

Solar System calendar to print out and color.

Solar System Crafts

How to write a report on a planet - plus a rubric.

Activities, quizzes, books to print, and printouts.

The Planets
A Book With Tabs
An activity book on the Solar System to print for fluent readers. The book contains information, pictures, and questions to answer.

The Solar System Book
A simple printable coloring book about the Solar System to print (for early readers). Pages on the Solar System, the sun, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Solar System Coloring Book

Color and learn about our Solar System, the Sun, the planets, asteroids, comets, and our moon.

A printable activity worksheet in which the student reads a bar graph of the average temperatures of the planets to answer questions, for example, "On average, is it warmer on Jupiter or Mars?" Or

Celsius Bar Graph Questions #2:
Printable Worksheet go to the answers. Go to a pdf version of the worksheet.

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Advertisement. EnchantedLearning.com is a user-supported site. As a bonus, site members have access to a banner-ad-free version of the site, with print-friendly pages. Click here to learn more. (Already a member? Click here.) The Planets (plus the Dwarf Planet Pluto) Our solar system consists of the sun, eight planets, moons, many dwarf planets (or plutoids), an asteroid belt, comets, meteors, and others.

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Background

Greenhouse Gases

On Earth, two elements, nitrogen (N ₂) and oxygen (O ₂), make up almost 99% of the volume of clean, dry air. Most of the remaining 1% is accounted for by the inert gaseous element, argon (Ar). Argon and the tiny percentage of remaining gases are referred to as trace gases. Certain trace atmospheric gases help to heat up our planet because they appear transparent to incoming visible (shortwave) light/radiation but act as a barrier to outgoing infrared (longwave) radiation. These special trace gases are often referred to as greenhouse gases which are heat-trapping gases that radiate the heat back to the Earth's surface, to another greenhouse gas molecule, or out to space.

The major greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO ₂), water vapor (H ₂O), methane (CH ₄), and nitrous oxide (N ₂O). These greenhouse gas molecules all are made of three or more atoms. The atoms are held together loosely enough that they vibrate when they absorb heat. Eventually, the vibrating molecules release the radiation, which will likely be absorbed by another greenhouse gas molecule. This process keeps heat near the Earth's surface and contributes to the greenhouse effect.

Plants, animals, and humans are able to live and thrive on Earth because the conditions in our atmosphere are just right. Earth's atmosphere acts like a blanket, keeping the temperatures from being too hot or too cold for living organisms. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be roughly -19° C (-2° F), well below freezing, instead of the current comfortable 15° C (59° F).

We can evaluate the effect of greenhouse gases by comparing Earth with its nearest planetary neighbors, Venus and Mars. These planets either have too much greenhouse effect or too little to be able to sustain life as we know it. The differences between the three planets have been termed the " Goldilocks Principle". The "Goldilocks Principle" refers to the fact that Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold, but Earth is just right.

Mars and Venus have essentially the same types and percentages of gases in their atmosphere. However, they have very different atmospheric densities.

Venus has an extremely dense atmosphere and many more greenhouse gases than Earth. The concentration of CO₂ is responsible for a "runaway" greenhouse effect and a very high annual average surface temperature of 464° C (867° F).

Mars has a very thin atmosphere, and therefore very small amounts of greenhouse gases compared to Earth; so even though the atmosphere of Mars is mostly CO₂, there is so little of it that it does not warm Mars very much and the annual average surface temperatures are quite low at around -63° C (-82° F).

Mars is much further away from the Sun than is Venus.

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On Earth, two elements, nitrogen (N 2) and oxygen (O 2), make up almost 99% of the volume of clean, dry air. Most of the remaining 1% is accounted for by the inert gaseous element, argon (Ar). Argon and the tiny percentage of remaining gases are referred to as trace gases.