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Physical Science: Magnets
Students investigate magnets and how they work. They read and discuss the book, What Makes a Magnet and record their observations as they complete activities. After exploring the magnet set, they record their predictions and results...
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Help Wanted: A Lighting Engineer For Popular Rock Group
Students are assigned to groups, and determine each member's role in the group. They will design an experiment to determine a way to produce the three primary and five secondary colors. Students discuss color and mood. They listen to a...
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The Floating Golf Ball
Young scholars explore density by floating golf balls. They explore having their golf balls float halfway in a container of water and discuss density and its realtionship to where the golf balls are floating. After adding food coloring,...
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Creating a Structure Lab
Students construct a paper structure that supports a standard hard cover textbook at least 12 inches above a flat sturdy surface for a minimum of 30 seconds. They explain what a blueprint is. Students build the structure entirely out of...
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Velocity, Acceleration, and Gravity
Middle schoolers perform an experiment where a string is tied across the room. A straw is threaded onto the string, and a balloon attached to the straw. Students determine the speed of the balloon as it moves across the string. They...
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Pickle Juice
Students generate experimental questions regarding conductors of electricity, plug cord into pickle, and measure and graph voltage drop across electrodes. Students then compare to variety of other conductors of their choosing.
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Seesaw Balances
Learners determine how the weights of 7 objects on a seesaw can vary and still be in balance. They also write equations in algebraic terms, how to change 3 variables in an equation expressed in algebraic terms to obtain the correct...
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Build a Simple Ammeter
Pupils build and work with a simple ammeter to test theories on why solar cells connected in parallel produce more current that in series. Students use the ammeter to indicate the presence, direction, and strength of an electric current...
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Solar Kit Lesson #11 Power Maximum: An Electrical Determination
Students identify and implement methods to standardize testing stations that measure solar panel output power. After collecting electrical ouptut data from several solar panels, they plot the current-voltage and power curves. Students...
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Newton's Laws and Seat Belts
Students study Newton's Laws of Motion. They review an assessment task and rubric and discuss Newton's Laws of Motion. They discuss how to test the relationships of mass and acceleration in personal situations. They write a one-page...
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Balloon Staging
Students explore rocketry using balloon rockets. They demonstrate how rockets can achieve greater altitudes by using the technology of staging. By using two inflated balloons that slide along a fishing line, they simulate a multistage...
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Momentum and Energy
Middle schoolers study how to calculate momentum, kinetic, and potential energy. They apply each form of energy to real world situations including demonstrations, watching videos, and designing a Power Point presentation. They...
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Science: The Bicycle as a System
Students explore how the different parts of a bicycle relate to each other and identify the subsystems. They discover how bicycles work and investigate their history. In groups, students research each of the subsystems and present...
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Marshmallow Moosy
Students stack several different colored marshmallows-one on top of the other-in the tall cylindrical container. They ct a cardboard disk to fit snugly inside of the container on top of the marshmallow stack using a compass if necessary....
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Icebergs Ahead!
Learners examine icebergs and how they are suspended in water, why ice floats, the melting process of an iceberg, and the floating behavior of ice compared to that of a cork through a lab activity.
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Seesaws
Students make direct comparisons between objects using balance and spring scales. They also are encouraged to estimate which object is heavier by holding the objects before using the balance scales. Comparing the masses of objects is the...
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Velocity
Learners determine the average speed of a toy car as it travels six different distances set up by Students. Three trials are done for each distance. The only requirements is that the longest distance must be at least three times longer...
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Swinging
Middle schoolers examine and modify a swinging apparatus. They describe the motion of an object by its position, direction of motion, and speed. Students measure motion using a graph.
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Rolling Down Hill
Students perform an experiment, collect, and analyze data of a rolling marble down a ramp. They report results after they complete their experiment. Students are assessed in science and writing.
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Pendulum
Sixth graders are instructed on how to create a pendulum and measure the periodicity of the pendulum, using four different combinations of string. They are asked which influences the time more- the length of the string or the weight at...
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Pendulums
Students construct a pendulums and experiment with what variables change or effect the rate at which they swing through an arc. They are assessed on scientific inquiry including the following skills: observation, data collection,...
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Hlf-Ball
Students investigate Newton's Laws of Motion and the Law of Conservation of Energy. They examine how a ball and half-ball behave and relate these laws to what happens to the ball. Students produce a graph of the data collected and...
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Sound Box
Students make simple observations and identify relevant variables, such as frequency and diameter. They then discuss the relationship between variables. The task assesses students' abilities to make simple observations and make...
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Threads
Students group observed data, filtering from all their observations the similarities between burring threads. In the second part they make a comparison of a chosen attribute between the two threads.