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Gravity: It's GREEEAAATTT!
Students calculate effects of gravitational force on planets, discuss the effects of weightlessness on the human body and describe and demonstrate how objects in a state of free fall are accelerated by gravity at an equal rate.
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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.
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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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TE Lesson: Using Heat from the Sun
Students examine fossil fuels, nuclear and renewable fuels. They study investigate types of heat transfer such as convection, conduction, and radiation. They complete crossword puzzles based on the vocabulary. They design, construct and...
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A Geological Puzzle
Students compare and contrast the various types of rocks on each continent. In groups, the calculate the rock ages and types to determine if the continents, in their opinion, were joined at one time. They develop two imaginary...
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Climate Change
Students compare weather data and draw conclusions. For this climate change lesson plan, students determine whether data collected over a period of ninety years shows a warming trend.
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Riding the Radio Waves
Learners examine the basic concepts of radio waves and magnetic fields. They study how the AM radios are built and demonstrate the concepts of amplitude and frequency.
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Collisions and Momentum: Bouncing Balls
Students explore the concepts of potential and kinetic energy by bouncing assorted balls on different surfaces and calculating the momentum for each ball. They give examples of collisions and momentum in sports and understand that...
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Oil Spill
Students explore an important role of environmental engineers by studying the Exxon Valdez oil spill. They experiment with different strategies in order to clean up their own manufactured oil spill.
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Sounds Like Music
Students 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 amounts of...
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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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How to be a Great Navigator!
Students examine historical methods of navigation. They discuss the techniques of "Dead Reckoning," "Heaving the Log," and "Chip Log," pretend to sail from Europe to North America using vectors and determine the location of their...
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Static Electricity
Students are introduced to the concept of static electricity and its causes. After viewing video segments, they observe its effect on various objects. In groups, they discover how static electricity is produced and how objects with...
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Hurricanes and Tornadoes (Grade 4-8)
Students investigate the concepts of hurricanes and violent weather conditions. For 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,...
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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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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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Tessellations
Students 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 been...
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High Mountain Retreat
Learners explore and analyze atmospheric conditions for a high mountain retreat. They examine the relationship between altitude, atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity at a particular location. In addition, they write reports...
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Parachutes, Circles and Pi...Oh My!
Students explore different size circles to discover the relationship between diameter and circumference. In this circles and Pi lesson, students construct simple parachutes using circle patterns of varying sizes. Students predict the...
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Symmetry in Paper Airplanes
Students explore symmetry. In this geometry and scientific inquiry lesson, students design paper airplanes with middle line symmetry, as well as right, obtuse, and acute angles. Students measure the plane's angles using a...
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Principles of Flight: Where are We?
Students explore the concept of topographical maps. In this topographical map lesson, students discuss how airplanes know where to fly. Students use topographical maps to simulate a field trip on the computer.
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A Plop and Fizz
Seventh graders perform an experiment to determine the effect of temperature on reaction rates. In this chemistry lesson, 7th graders take measurements and record data. They create a graph and analyze results.
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Pika Chew
Learners work in collaborative teams with specific roles, use the Internet to research the behavior and ecology of pikas, make predictions about survival rates of pikas in different habitats and organize their data in graphs.
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An Underground River
Seventh graders describe how water flows through the ground, what an aquifer is and what soil properties are used to predict groundwater flow. They consider the affects of pollution on groundwater supplies and write a letter drawing...