Curated OER
Google Earth Geology Field Trip
Learners take a virtual field trip around California using Google Earth. In this geology field trip lesson, students explore landforms and a variety of rocks located in California. Learners compare environments where rocks are formed....
Curated OER
Geologic Time Scale Analogy
Students examine geologic time to scale. In this geologic time lesson, students create a time-scale metaphor that shows some of the Earth's important events. Students present their metaphor to the class.
Curated OER
Gliding Glaciers
Glaciers are the star of the show in this Earth science lesson. In it, learners gain an understanding of how glaciers are formed, how they move, and what types of landforms they create. This lesson plan is written in the classic format,...
California Academy of Science
What Kind of Geologist Am I?
Transform your class into young geologists as they learn about six different branches of geology. Using the included geology career descriptions and picture cards, learners work in small groups deciding which tools and locations fit...
National Park Service
Living & Non-Living Interactions
What better way to learn about ecosystems than by getting outside and observing them first hand? Accompanying a field trip to a local park or outdoor space, this series of collaborative activities engages children in learning about the...
Curated OER
Making Regolith
You may not be able to take a field trip to the moon, but that doesn't mean your class can't study moon rocks. Using graham crackers as the moon's bedrock and powdered donuts as micrometeorites, young scientists simulate the creation of...
Curated OER
Cake Batter Lava
Students examine how lava flows change the landscape. In this lava lesson students complete a lab activity where they create a lava flow using cake batter.
Curated OER
Mapping the Bone Field: An Area and Scale Exercise
Here is an excellent cross-curricular lesson. Learners relate multiplication to area by making a grid on graph paper, and then creating the same grid in real space outside in the school yard.
Curated OER
Rock Pioneers
Students explore geology by participating in a field trip exercise. For this rock analysis lesson, students discuss rock formations and how water moves rocks according to the tide. Students conduct a tide activity by marking a rock of...
Curated OER
Origins: Earth Is Born
Students develop a timeline of all the major events involved in the formation of the Earth and the emergence of humans. In groups, they focus on a specific topic by watching a PBS program and taking notes. After the video, they list...
Curated OER
Sensational Soil
Fourth and fifth graders explore soil by taking a simulated field trip under the earth. They go to an Internet site that runs a simulation which charges them with finding a source of pollution that could destroy all of Earth's soil, and...
Curated OER
Paleontology: A Field Experience
Students go to a dig where they prospect for bones which simulate fossils. They encase the bones in plaster and transport them back to school for further investigation.
Curated OER
CUPCAKE CORE SAMPLING
Young scholars explore what is beneath the surface of the earth is one of the jobs of a geologist. Rather than digging up vast tracts of land to expose an oil field, or to find coalbearing strata, core samples can be taken.
Curated OER
Discover a Pond Food Web
Students study the biodiversity of animal life in a pond. They investigate the interdependence between pond organisms by completing a pond dipping activity and completing a checklist.
Curated OER
Footprints: Take a Step into Estimation
Compare sizes of student footprints with those of elephants and sauropod dinosaurs! Upper graders make estimations of the areas of irregular shapes; young scholars use grids to make and explain estimates within low and high ranges.
Curated OER
Floodplain Modeling
Students simulate the impact of fluctuating river volumes on structures and landforms. They experiment with table top-sized riverbed models and water. Students consider how human design can help mitigate the effects of a flood.
Curated OER
Animals of the Lost City
Begin with a demonstration of exothermic reactions and discussion of chemosynthesis. Your aspiring oceanographers research vent communities and then craft a mural of a vent community. This is a terrific method of introducing learners to...
Curated OER
Exploring Mars
Students, working in small groups construct scale models of the planets and solar system. They examine images of Mars and discuss what might have caused the features. They record facts about their planetary research in their journals and...
Curated OER
Magnetic Hangman
Fifth graders predict what happens when the north end of their bar magnets are placed near the north end of their hanging magnets.
Curated OER
Making Cookies- How many per hour?
Fifth graders measure how long it takes to make cookies. In this measuring time lesson, 5th graders explore how to manage time. Students decide when to start making breakfast on time, how to calculate playing time into their lunch time,...
Curated OER
These Maps are for the Birds
Students identify and study New York State Breeding Bird Atlas maps to learn where different bird species nest and how their distributions have changed over time. They also identify how maps serve as representations of a geographic...