Whatever floats your boat—with some additional weight. The first activity in a five-part series challenges pupils to design a boat to hold pennies. Using the design process, learners design, build, and test their boats, making sure they...

Create bending joints—but don't break! The activity shows how to make a puppet using straws and fishing line. Pupils create cuts to make joints that rely on the elasticity of the straw to bend and return to their original shapes.

A journal template makes observing nature a breeze. Super scientists identify an interesting object in nature, draw it, list its details, and compose a written descriptions of their artwork. 

Save the planet one vocabulary activity at a time! Offer scholars a chance to locate 20 words with an Earth Day-themed word search. 

Help young readers find, identify, and use their voices with a set of empowering activities based on Peter H. Reynolds' trilogy of books. Sky Color, Ish, and The Dot focus on recognizing moods and treating each other...

Twenty questions make up an assessment designed to test super scientists' knowledge of ecosystems. Scholars answer multiple-choice and short-answer questions about organisms, food chains, energy flow, and more.

Young scientists discover how sea otters' habitats have changed due to human impact. Through conversation, video observation, and story reading, scholars identify how human interactions change a specific ecosystem in both positive and...

Thirteen short-answer questions follow a brief food web activity in a formative assessment designed to test knowledge of ecosystems and the energy that flows through them.

Budding scientists work collaboratively to reenact energy flow in a food chain. Scholars take on roles such as producer and consumer and perform tasks that symbolize energy flow in order to provide evidence of how much energy passes...

Get your hands dirty with an interactive lesson that showcases the process of decomposing and returning nutrients back into the soil. After building a compost pile, pupils regularly observe the...

Scholars become part of the cycle of matter with a reader's theater that showcases producers, consumers, decomposers, and the sun. A diagram and discussion concludes the learning experience and enhances comprehension. 

How can you tell if a microorganism is helpful or detrimental to an ecosystem? Learners inspect slides or pictures of microorganisms and record their observations to...

Learners work collaboratively to predict what life would be like as an Arctic Hare. Teams go on a hunt where scholars role play an owl, white hares, and gray hares. Independently, pupils record their findings and reflect on their...

It's time for a field trip! Scholars take their new-found knowledge of adaptations and seed dispersal on a field trip to a local botanical garden. They gain an up-close look at how ecological interdependence works in a distinct...

After a grand conversation about seeds, adaptation, and dispersal, scholars work collaboratively to examine seeds and record their findings on a four-column chart.  Small groups share their observations and further discuss seed...

Instill the concept of adaptation with the help of Blubber Gloves—ziplock bags, shortening, and duct tape. Scholars discuss how animals and plants keep warm in polar regions, record their predictions, and try on their Blubber Gloves to...

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. 

Scholars take part in a grand conversation about the basic needs of living things. Working collaboratively, pupils brainstorm and identify similarities to come to the conclusion that the environment meets the needs of all living...

Discover how much your young scientists know about biotic and abiotic factors with a two-question formative assessment that requires them to observe, list, and describe. 

Small groups investigate plots of land to discover how abiotic and biotic factors interact. After recording their findings, scholars share observations with peers and self-reflect on the learning process. 

Test scholars' knowledge of ecosystems with a 20-question pre-assessment. Assessment challenges learners to answer multiple choice questions, read diagrams, and complete charts.

We all scream for ice cream! Individuals create home-made ice cream in the classroom. This is a delicious way to show a real-world application of the freezing point depression to your class.

Who's going to get slimed? Your entire class! Scholars create slime using Borax, water, and white glue. Some food coloring can give the slime a bit of color.

Textbooks are heavier than a sheet of paper, so how can paper hold up a textbook? Young engineers create a structure out of paper that can support a textbook. To add another wrinkle, they must stay within budget and time constraints.