Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
How Much Water Do You Use?
Incorporate reading strategies, math, research, and the scientific method into one lesson about water conservation. After reading a story about a landlady trying to determine how many people are living in an apartment, learners develop a...
Illustrative Mathematics
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor
What better way to engage children in a math instructional activity than by talking about ice cream? Using a pocket chart or piece of chart paper, the class works together creating a bar graph of the their favorite ice cream flavors....
Curated OER
What's in a Graph?
How many yellow Skittles® come in a fun-size package? Use candy color data to construct a bar graph and a pie chart. Pupils analyze bar graphs of real-life data on the Texas and Massachusetts populations. As an assessment at the end of...
Mathematics Vision Project
Quadratic Functions
Inquiry-based learning and investigations form the basis of a deep understanding of quadratic functions in a very thorough unit plan. Learners develop recursive and closed methods for representing real-life situations, then apply these...
Heritage Foundation
The Purpose of the Constitution
What does the Constitution have to do with my life? This is a question teachers hear on a day-to-day basis. Teach high schoolers just how relevant the US Constitution is to them today with essays, real-life connection activities, and more.
Curated OER
Lakota Numbers
Students count in Lakota Sioux numbers and solve math problems. In this algebra lesson, students count in a different language and use it to solve math problems. They work on their pronunciation and spelling as well as math skills in...
Curated OER
Watermelon Graphing
Students discover bar graphs. For this primary math lesson plan, students identify the parts of watermelon seeds and other seeds. Students learn the proper names and common names which refer to the parts of the seeds as they create a bar...
Curated OER
Comparing Apples and Onions
Fifth graders observe and compare apples. In this apples lesson, 5th graders work in groups to record the physical characteristics of a variety of apples. Students predict each apples weight and then weigh them to see if they were...
Curated OER
Dealing with Data in Elementary School
Students follow the scientific method in collecting data. In this following the scientific method in collecting data lesson, students develop a question they would like answered such as how many aluminum cans are consumed each school...
Curated OER
Do You Live a Healthy Lifestyle?
Fifth graders examine and evaluate how active their own lifestyle is by counting how many steps they take on a daily basis. They watch a PowerPoint presentation about healthy lifestyles, record how many steps they take in a day with the...
Curated OER
Working With Environmental Issues
Students begin the lesson plan by completing a survey about how much and what types of water they drink on a daily basis. Using a worksheet, they calculate the amount of water an American uses each day and the amount their own family...
Curated OER
Expected Outcome
Young scholars determine expected values of experiments and explore distributions of experiments. They guess as to how many times a coin will flip heads in fifty tries. They flip a coin fifty times graphing the results on a histogram....
Curated OER
Terraqua Columns
Learners participate in a discussion about their personal ecosystem and the organisms they interact with on a daily basis. After a discussion, they work in groups to build TerrAqua columns, which they work with for a two to three week...
Curated OER
Easy Estimation
Students use estimation as a math strategy. Students estimate the number of small snacks that are presented to them. Students count the snack items after they have estimated how many there are, before the class snack on a daily basis.
Illustrative Mathematics
Grass Seedlings
Plants never grow at the same rate, and that is the antithesis for this word problem involving multiplication of fractions. On the learning exercise, Raul notices that Pablo's seedlings are 1 1/2 times as tall, and Celina's seedlings are...
Curated OER
Water Down the Drain
Did you know that leaky faucets waste $10 million worth of water? Conservationists perform an experiment and draw best-fit lines to explore how the US Geological Society determined this value.
National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network
Lines on Paper - Laser Box
See what you cannot see by getting a little creative. An intriguing lesson has learners use lasers to explore X-ray diffraction. Given a box with unknown structures, they shine a laser through the box and interpret the results....
Curated OER
Risk Concepts
Students participate in an activity to examine the concept of risk. They discover that not all risks have the same consequences. They work together to complete a worksheet on probability and their perceptions.
Curated OER
Compost Cake
Learners examine the decomposition process. They create their own class compost pile and record their observations. They discover which materials decompose at a different rate.
Curated OER
Declaration of Independence
Students define the words: republic, Articles of Condederation, survey, Northwest Ordinance, republicanism, ordinance, ratified, and Northwest Territory. They view the video Charlie Brown Constitution.
Curated OER
Trigonometric Identities
Learners calculate the six trigonometric identities. In this algebra lesson, students verify other identities using the basic trigonometric identities of sine, cosine and tangent. They complete a worksheet with hints and then are graded...
Curated OER
Fun with Phylogenetic Trees
Tenth graders differentiate angiosperms and gymnosperms. In this biology lesson, 10th graders construct a musical phylogenetic tree from information they gathered on resource websites. They present their project in class.
Curated OER
Simple Harmonic Motion
Students solve problems involving graphs. In this calculus lesson, students relate harmonic motion to velocity. They discuss the derivative and the effect on the functions created.
Curated OER
Encouraging Inquiry-Based Research
Students categorize questions they generate in preparation for pursuing answers that expand their existing knowledge. They create KWL charts and respond to journal questions to enable them to inquire to their fullest capacity.