Here you will find resources to help educators and their students use a process to build consensus from many diverse opinions; develop a list of factors that are most important to consider when making land-use decisions for your community; develop an appreciation for the importance and difficulty of considering different points of view when making land-use decisions for a community; understand that land features and natural resources play an important role in a community's planning process.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students collect, study and describe local soils and develop a classification system for them; understand how soils form, what a soil profile is, and the importance of soil as a natural resource; understand the relationship between the physical characteristics of a soil and how the soil formed; understand that soil characteristics may vary over time, and that these variations can greatly impact a community; map the location of different soils in your community.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students calculate the angle of repose for the different kinds of soil and other granular materials; determine if any areas in your community have slopes that are too steep for safe development; understand the importance of considering slopes in land development.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students determine which areas of your community would be affected by floods of various levels; gather and analyze rainfall data for the community for the past 50 years; propose areas for development and areas not to be developed, using data on floods and rainfall; understand the importance of floodplains in land-use planning.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students investigate how urban heat islands can affect local temperatures; develop an understanding for factors that cause the urban-heat-island effect; investigate ways to minimize the urban-heat-island effect.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students map the drainage basin(s) in which your community lies, and identify the drainage divides; locate and identify water sources within the community; understand the importance of protecting the water resources of a community; understand the importance of knowing the location of a community's watersheds and drainage divides for land-use and planning purposes.

Here you will find storylines for EarthComm: Understanding Your Environment: Land Use Planning and Your Community- Storylines

Here you will find links to a variety of other websites that will help deepen your understanding of content and prepare you to understand Land Use Planning and Your Community.

Here you will find links to a variety of other websites that will help deepen your understanding of content and prepare you for the EarthComm: Understanding Your Environment module.

Here you will find a wide variety of map resources for teachers and students.