Curated OER
Plants and Animals: Partners in Pollination
Students describe the complementary relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate, identify adaptations that flowers have developed to "encourage" pollination, and create and draw their own "designer" flowers.
Curated OER
How Do Things Fall?
Students study forces by examining the force of gravitational attraction. They observe how objects fall and measure the force of gravitational attraction upon objects. Students discover that, since gravitational constants are different...
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Take Charge!
Students induce an electrical charge on various objects, and experiment with electrical repulsion and attraction. They define related vocabulary, play Bingo and complete a take-home quiz.
Curated OER
Tornado!
Students examine the characteristics and types of tornadoes. They discuss how they are formed, conduct an experiment with two liter bottles, analyze data and determine mean and median, and design a house to withstand tornado-force winds
Curated OER
Interactions Everywhere!
Learners examine interactions within the environment and environmental engineering careers. They discuss and view photos of natural and manmade environments, explore various websites, create a web to identify interactions between living...
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Butterfly Adventure
Students in second grade are paired with fifth grade computer research buddies. They observe the characteristics of caterpillars, and identify the four stages of the caterpillar to butterfly life cycle. They graph the number of...
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Sense of Place: No River Too Wide-Bridges
Fifth graders discover the history of their hometown Des Moines River. In this U.S. Geography lesson students speak with Iowans that tell stories of the settlers and early villages near the Des Moines River. Students document...
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What Does it Take to be a Survivor? Part One
Students explore marine animal adaptation. In this introductory ocean life biology lesson, students access prior knowledge by participating in a whole class "thought swap." Students form two lines, respond to a prompt from the teacher...
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Earthquakes Rock!
Young scholars study the main methods to measure earthquakes; the Richter Scale and Mercalli Scale. They make a model of a seismograph and investigate which structural designs are most likely to survive an earthquake.
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Digestive System
Students analyze how the digestive system works by taking the food we eat and breaking it down for our bodies to use for various reasons. They list the major components of the digestive system and draw a diagram. They explain how...
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TE Lesson: Energy Transfer in Musical Instruments
Students study concepts of energy and energy transfer. They look at how these concepts apply to musical instruments. They study the law of conservation of energy. They use the concepts studied in the lesson to design a musical instrument.
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TE Lesson: I've Got Issues!
Learners study environmental issues from different perspectives. They look at the issues from the view of both preservationists and conservationists as they identify themselves with one group or the other. They determine how teamwork...
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TE Lesson: I've Gotta Get Some Air
Students investigate types and sources of indoor air pollutions both at home and in school. They decide on how to prevent poor indoor air quality. They debate smoking in order to determine how language usage can be an influence in...
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TE Lesson: Pollution Solutions
Students study how industrial technology helps clean up and prevent air pollution. They role play as engineers to examine methods of engineering pollutant recovery methods such as scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators, cyclones, and...
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Sounds Like Music
Young scholars define and examine the connections between sound and music and how engineers design instruments. They listen to examples of musical instruments, view a demonstration of a tuning fork and bottles filled with varying...
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Crash! Bang!
Students study the physical force of linear momentum by investigating collisions. They analyze the difference between elastic and inelastic collisions. They calculate linear momentum.
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TE Lesson: Land on the Run
Students study the causes of different types and speeds of landslides. They determine that landslides are the result of gravity, friction, and the materials involved. They examine the step engineers are taking to prevent and avoid...
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Paper Helicopters
In this paper helicopter instructional activity, students design and experiment making a paper helicopter to explore how some things fall and how varying the size of the rotor blades affect the way a helicopter spins.
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Hurricanes and Tornadoes (Grade 4-8)
Students investigate the concepts of hurricanes and violent weather conditions. In this violent weather lesson, students access an Internet site and watch a video about how air masses behave, how a tornado forms, how hurricanes form, and...
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A Frog's Life Story
Students investigate the lives of frogs by completing several worksheets. In this biology lesson, students discover the life cycle of a frog from tadpole to death. Students complete frog life cycle puzzle as well as create a...
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Migration of the Neo-Tropical Songbirds
Fifth graders plot the migration of birds using Google Earth. For this lesson on bird migration, 5th graders work in groups to plot the migration of a group of birds using Google Earth. Students present and discuss their findings and...
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Watershed Lesson Plan
Students are introduced to the concepts of a watershed, stream flow and water quality. This five-day plan is an excellent way to introduce students to the concepts involved. They create their own watershed using a paper bag, water and...
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Filling in the Picture
Students study archaeological sites. They discover some of the problems inherent in choosing sites and what parts are chosen for excavation. They evaluate and explain their choices for study and articulate the process of archaeological...
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Tessellations
Young scholars identify and construct figures that tessellate. They investigate which regular polygons tessellate and how to modify them to make other tessellating figures. Students explore how naturally occurring tessellations have...