Dead trees provide nutrients for the soil, food for animals, protection and a home for organisms, a seed-bed for new trees, and a place for nitrogen-fixing bacteria to live. In the activity, pupils collect decaying logs, expose them to a...

Examine wood bugs and their habitat. Learners gather wood bugs and examine their bodies. Then discuss their body parts and how they help them survive. They also predict where they think wood bugs live to then graph the class results.

Students research living organisms by exploring their school grounds. In this microscopic observation lesson, students gather materials, insects, and objects from their playground and schoolyard and bring them into class. Students...

Students, after exploring and analyzing diagrammatic and taxonomic keys and their association to marine sciences, identify and classify objects and organisms based on visual attributes/characteristics. They research and create their own...

Students describe what it means for a marine animal or fish to be threatened or endangered after playing game simulating extinction.

Students identify the sources of water on Earth. In this life science instructional activity, students list the different plants and animals that live in the ocean. They explore marine objects in the lab and draw them.

Students study the diversity of marine life and their habitats.  In this aquatic ecosystems lesson students complete a lab activity and experiment. 

Students use a simple method to collect living microorganisms from natural and/or artificial environments and develop skills in microscopy, observation, drawing, speculation, hypothesizing, oral presentation, and raising questions.

Why are bees so important? After several activities where kids investigate the form and function of flowers, they learn about the different types of bees and label them. They then examine pollen under a microscope and decide which bees...

Students explore aquatic life. In this science lesson, students visit an aquatic ecosystem and collect animals found there. Students create a food chain for the aquatic ecosystem.

Show the six-minute video, "Changing Planet: Fading Corals," and then demonstrate how calcium carbonate forms a precipitate in the presence of carbon dioxide. Separate your scientists into small groups to gather information about coral...

Seventh graders describe the main characteristics of warm-blooded vertebrate animals. They compare and contrast the two different groups of warm-blooded vertebrate animals by looking at external, reproductive, and growth characteristics.

Some scientists argue that air pollution now causes more deaths than smoking. The second unit in a six-part series focuses on air quality. Scholars learn what's in the air, how clean the air around their school is, and what they can do...

Space, the Final Frontier. The nine NASA-created challenges in this unit are designed to teach class members the engineering design process. Each challenge comes with teacher and student pages that can be used individually or as a...

Young scholars review the classification system for living organisms and apply it the classification of insects and flowers in the still life by Ambrosius Bosschaert. They create a chart classifying the animals and plants in the painting...

For this human body worksheet, students are given clues to find hidden words in boxes. Topics include the human body systems, the components of living things and the building blocks of life.

Students examine the factors the affect water quality, and allow for animals and plants to live. They look at how engineers apply water quality information when making stream modifications in order to ensure drinking water quality. They...

Young scholars explore simple and compound machines. In groups of four students, they design a compound machine using K'NEX that has a stated purpose and consists of at least two simple machines.

Lead your young scientists into an exciting world as they participate in a role play and experiment focused on proteins and DNA. After researching the Central Dogma of Biology, individuals or groups participate in a classroom...

Students design and execute a lab through which they study the distinctions between density, buoyancy, and volume.

Students study science. In this endangered species lesson, students examine sea turtles and actions that can be taken to help keep them alive. They work in small groups to research different species of turtles and share their information...

Students explore the food chains in a variety of ecosystems and its relationship to the survival of threatened or endangered marine animals or fish in the ocean. The interdependence of the species is investigated in this lesson.

Students complete activities to study the importance of biodiversity. For this biodiversity lesson, students find images to categorize into organism groups and illustrate their interconnections. Students use measurement tools to study a...

Students identify what adaptation is and to research a specific mollusk. They also identify and interpret how animals get their common and scientific name and why it is Latin. Finally, students draw their shell (mollusk) and name their...