Curated OER
Food Chain Activities
Transform young biologists into grasshoppers, lizards, and hawks as you teach them about food chains in an interactive life science simulation. Working collaboratively to act out three different scenarios involving...
Science Matters
Oh Heron
Two teams—the environmentalists and herons—play four rounds of the game, Oh Heron. Using hand symbols to represent food, shelter, and water, players locate their match to produce more herons while those unmatched decompose.
Curated OER
Making Models of the Solar System
Students make several models of the solar system to learn the positions of the planets in the solar system as well as relative distances and sizes. Creation of these models will help them identify the planets by size, shape, color,...
Curated OER
The Life Cycle of the Mealworm
Fourth graders provide a habitat for live mealworms and observe their life cycle. In this animal life cycle and scientific inquiry lesson, 4th graders create a habitat for a live mealworm and observe and record related data as it grows....
Curated OER
A Day in the Life of a San Francisco Native Animal
Students write from an animal's perspective. In this writing lesson students explore the landscape of San Francisco prior to the arrival of the explorers. Students research animals indigenous to the area.
Scholastic
Study Jams! Light Absorption, Reflection, & Refraction
Zoe and RJ are trying to photograph an egret on a lake, but they are having trouble with the lighting. Reflection, refraction, and absorption are explored through their thoughtful dialogue so that your physical scientists are illuminated...
Curated OER
Looking at Food Chains
For this Looking at Food Chains worksheet, students read about a food chain under the sea and underline important information. Next, students fill in a graphic organizer about food chains based on the information they just read.
Baylor College
Fuel for Living Things
During a three-part lesson plan, learners make a cabbage juice pH indicator and use it to analyze the waste products of yeast after feeding them with sugar. The intent is to demonstrate how living organisms produce carbon dioxide, which...
Wild BC
Carbon - The Short and the Long
For this complex game about the carbon cycle, the playing field is divided into air, living, and earth zones. Children are assigned to be either plants or animals, and collect carbon tokens as they proceed from zone to zone. While the...
University of Waikato
Māui and the Sun
Using a Maori legend, How Maui Tamed the Sun, youngsters are introduced to the importance of sunlight to civilization. Teach them about nuclear fusion that occurs to produce the solar energy we later receive on Earth as...
Curated OER
The Purpose of Each Part of a Plant
Beginning botanists can sketch the parts of a plant in individual boxes, or better yet, they can tape or glue actual plant parts in them. Beside each box are a few sentences with selected words left out. From the word bank at the bottom...
Curated OER
Life Science Review for Grade 4
In this life science review for grade 4 activity, 4th graders answer 25 multiple choice questions in standardized test format about life science.
University of Waikato
Build a Marine Food Web
Dive into a lesson on marine ecosystem interactions. Individuals learn about and devise a marine food web. The resource provides organism cards and pupils use article resources to discover interactions before modeling them in a food web.
Curated OER
Vocabulary: Types of Ecosystems
Pupils practice using vocabulary words from life science. They will investigate the ecosystem and the terms that are associated with it. In addition, they will complete a fill-in-the-blank exam using the vocabulary words.
NOAA
Motion from the Ocean
Create a fish mobile using cardboard and string to hang in the classroom while studying ocean life. Each printable requires pupils to cut out two of the same fish to create consistency on the front and back.
National Park Service
Reduce Our Carbon Footprint, Let’s Compost!
Roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty with this elementary and middle school compost lesson. All you need is a large plastic container, a couple old newspapers, some organic waste, and a few hundred worms and you're ready...
Polar Trec
Rings of Life
Individuals analyze tree rings to determine the health of an ecosystem. They then look at otoliths of fish, hard calcium carbonate structures located behind the brain, in the same manner.
Oxford University Press
The Jungle Book
Most every teacher dreams of a ready-to-teach and print book study. Well, here it is! The Jungle Book novel resource includes 12 complete lessons studying poetry, author's craft, themes, characters, and more. Scholars role play,...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Cracking the Code
Some interesting reading on the history of barcodes opens this technology lesson plan. Readers find out how engineers contribute, and then they gather into groups to discuss possible improvements to our current UPC barcode system. Know...
Purdue University
Reptiles, Amphibians, and the Scientific Method
What do a reptile and an amphibian have in common? A three-part lesson allows scholars to investigate the similarities and differences between the two types of animals by identifying specific body parts. The lesson highlights the...
K12 Reader
Down the Hatch
After reading a short passage about the digestive system, kids demonstrate their understanding by responding to a series of comprehension questions.
University of Wisconsin
Follow the Drop
Young surveyors look for patterns in water flow around campus. Using a map of the school (that you will need to create), they mark the direction of the path of water. They also perform calculations for the volume that becomes runoff. The...
Curated OER
I Wonder How the Manduca Life Cycle Compares To the Human Life Cycle...
Students study life cycles including developing their understanding of the human life cycle. They decide where they are in the human life cycle and provide reasons for that placement. They compare the human life cycle to that of the...
Curated OER
A Rat's Life
Here is a two-page worksheet on rats and mice. Learners answer nine true/false questions about rats and mice, then compose answers to seven short-answer questions about these two rodents. Finally, they must compose a fictional story...