Having fresh, clean drinking water is a privilege many people take for granted. Help raise awareness about the scarcity of water and the importance of conservation by discussing different ways water is used in everyday life. Brainstorm...

Don't let your eyes play tricks on you ... use scale to keep your eyes in check! Young scholars observe images without scale and try to identify the structure. Then, they look at the same image with a scale bar and assess whether their...

Springboard your fourth and fifth graders into the study geologic time. They will complete 7 activities to learn about geologic time and the topics most often associated with it: astronomy, creation, planet formation, volcanology,...

Your life science class works in their groups to review the concept maps that they have constructed over the course of a microbiology unit. They share what they have learned with the rest of the class. In a second session, they are given...

Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science instructional activity. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing...

Rainforests are the topic of this brief reading passage. Learners can find out all about the different layers of the rainforest as well as the types of creatures that live there. After reading, they respond to five questions about the text.

A great way to incorporate math into life science, this lesson plan has learners measure migratory routes on a map and calculate the actual distance that shorebirds on the routes would cover. Learners compute the distance covered in both...

A helpful worksheet encourages pupils to make environmentally-friendly choices at home. The packet presents many ways that learners can help the environment, such as taking shorter showers in order to conserve water.

How many of us can say they've seen a Pacific walrus? Not many and one of the reasons is the impact of climate change on their aquatic environment. Children get to think about the food web of the Bering Sea by creating an actual web with...

How does gravity affect the life cycle of a butterfly? Learn first-hand what types of investigations astronauts perform in space by following along with one of NASA's experiments. Create butterfly habitats in the classroom with specific...

As an introduction to using a network to determine the fewest number of nodes that meet a given condition, small groups work together to determine the fewest number of ice cream vans, and their locations, to be able to serve the people...

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.

Introduce your class to another type of ecosystem, the taiga ecosystem, through a reading passage. Class members read the text and then respond to five reading questions about the content of the passage.

Students perform experiments to examine if debris float, or blow in the wind. The effects of these characteristics on the marine debris are then discussed. They determine how a material can influence what becomes marine debris.

Fifth graders study how respiration and circulation are connected.  In this respiratory lesson plan students complete several activities to better understand heart rate and carbon dioxide in the body. 

Young oceanographers conduct independent online research to learn about ocean life, explore limerick and cinquain poem structure and syllabication, and produce poetry that conveys the information they found. Links don't work, but it's...

Explore the habitats found around the world. The Desert, Rain Forest, Tundra, Prairie, Grassland, Forest, Marine and Zoo habitats are all covered in this easy to follow presentation. Each slide has a themed background picture, several...

Young scholars examine the Scientific Method. They will discover the value in being observant, organized, and thorough with regard to science. They will also explore how these traits can serve them well in other areas of life.

Using a magnifier, mini marine biologists examine the barbules of a bird feather. They swirl the it into a mixture of oil and water and then re-examine the feather. After the activity, discuss how the oily feathers pose a problem to...

Students pretend they are water droplets traveling through the water cycle. Using their text, they discover the steps in the cycle and the different paths water can take. They write a report about their journey through the water cycle...

Discover the natural resources in Iowa by studying it's history. In this environmental lesson, your students will observe a topographical map of Iowa and identify where its most valuable resources are. They complete an Iowa name...

Off the coast of California lives a wild animal called the Island Fox. Experts discuss the importance of the Island Fox to the Channel Islands and the balance the fox creates within its ecosystem. The lesson concludes with a reading of...

Students determine water level tidal predictions for a given place for the next month, current status of the area and the local weather. Links are provided for the information. Students answer questions based on the information found,...

Students study the life cycle of a crab and the larval stages of marine animals. For this marine animals lesson, students watch a puppet introduction to a crab's life cycle.  Students learn about crab moulting and their life cycle...