 links  a joint paper produced by the american enterprise institute and the brookings institute titled  mercury in the environment a volatile problem   provides an excellent readable survey of the entire issue the biodiversity research institute has also published an excellent overview this one more focused on the northeastern us titled  mercury connections  you might want to consider printing off a number of copies of these two documents for use by the students in the class an interesting lesson plan comparing the carbon cycle to the mercury cycle has been created for the national institute of environmental health science scaffolding the mercury cycle to the carbon cycle may help your students understand the mercury cycle better below is a link to additional mercury related activities for both high school and middle school levels they are on the environmental protection website the activities were adapted from mercury in schools and the community a national issue from the university of wisconsin system board of regents march 2002 even though it is in the middle school activity section the toxic treasure hunt would be a good way to show where mercury can be found in the home and the school look for the heading student information and activities the activities are listed by grade level  http wwwepagov region7 mercury educatortoolkithtm a  useful sheet  that talks about the meaning of ppm ppb mg kg and so on is available from the center for hazardous substance research volume 4 of the epa s report to congress on mercury  is an incredibly valuable resource for all the material in this module whether you are working with fish human hair or other kinds of samples it is a big document but well worth downloading and using as reference you will also find value in the other volumes in the epa s report to congress there is a  website that provides access to the entire report  along with other good information there is a  good article on sampling for mercury in human hair  in the national library of medicine s pubmed database the epa also has a good brief  summary of mercury concentrations  in different species of fish this will be important whether you are looking at ecosystems in the field or at human hair the university of wisconsinextension has produced  a nice introductory piece on mercury  as well as a  complete mercury curriculum  this mercury curriculum is substantially different from what we have here but it definitely a useful resource and worth looking at speaking very generally the primary difference is that the university of wisconsin curriculum is more focused on knowledge about mercury as a learning objective while we are more focused on mercury as a means to learning objectives related to systems change and the nature of science   links section   mercury in watersheds  