If the school is located near a rocky shore with a decent tidal range, a trip to the beach offers a great opportunity for learning about adaptation and niche environments. Take students down to the shore at low tide and get them to observe the types of plants and animals which can be found at different distances between the water and the high-tide mark. The high-tide mark is shown by a strip of dead sea weed and driftwood. Have them pay attention to the ways the plants and animals are attached to the rock, their relative sizes and how densely they fill the area. Take along a field guide (see Resources) as specific to your local area as possible.
Use an ant farm to experiment with the effect of temperature on ant activity. Place a relatively large food item on the surface of the earth above the nest. Regulate the temperature where the nest is kept and time how long it takes for the ants to move the item down into the nest. Now put the ant farm into a lower temperature environment and repeat the experiment. See if the ants work faster or slower in the lower temperature. Run this several times to see if the pattern holds up.
Help students to investigate how different materials decompose under different conditions. Use plant matter, card, plastics and metals. Leave some outside, exposed to the air but protected from rain, and others exposed to the rain and air. Bury some in the earth, mix some clay and bury some in the clay mixture and finally submerge some in water, salty and fresh. Leave the materials over a number of weeks and return to them to see how they have broken down. Return again in a few months, to see if their is any further change.
Collect a number of soil types from different areas, the greater the variation the better. You can create artificial variation by adding compost or sand to the soil. Plant a range of plants in each soil type and grow them under similar conditions. Get students to note how successfully each plant grows in different soil types, paying attention to coloration of leaves and flowers, stem thickness, growth of new shoots, drooping and height.