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Using Density to Identify Wood Types
Students identify different woods based on their density. In this density lesson, students use a triple beam balance to find the mass and a metric ruler for the volume. They look through various wood blocks and identify what type of wood...
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Climate Systems - Which Location Is Best For Me?
Students study the difference between weather and climate. In this climate systems lesson students search the Internet for the parts of the Earth's system, gather climate data and complete a challenge scenario.
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Rain Forest Reporters
Students work as magazine reporters to produce a print or multimedia magazine about rain forests.
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Will There be Enough Water?
Students investigate water usage, water available, and water demand historically in the local area. They use projections of water usage, availability and demand up to the year 2050. Students use graphs to relate as well as compare and...
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Understanding the Geologic Timescale
Students identify and analyze how the geologic time scale was developed by investigating 11 periods of time and the vast expanse of time of the Earth's existence. They study their period, determine the important factors indicative to...
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Torque Me Off
Students investigate the lever and the mathematics associated with levers. They determine the conditions necessary to balance a system of forces around a fulcrum.
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How Many Trees Can You Grow?
Students solve a story problem about how many trees can be planted in a given area. Using a map, they gather information about the size of the area and the dimensions of an acre. They use a specific equation to determine the area of...
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Radiation Reassessed
Students investigate the dangers of radiation by exploring recent nuclear tragedies. For this scientific debate lesson, students define the idea of radiation "half life" and determine if low doses of radiation are truly damaging to...
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On the Oregon Trail
Students prepare cross-curricular lessons based on the experience of traveling the Oregon Trail.
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Balsa Towers
Middle schoolers build their own tower using concepts from previous lessons. They are given a set of materials to use and general guidelines. They share what they have created with their classmates.
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Comparison of Snow Cover on Different Continents
Students use the Live Access Server (LAS) to form maps and a numerical text file of snow cover for each continent on a particular date. They analyze the data for each map and corresponding text file to determine an estimate of snow cover...
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Propellers, Forces and Energy
Students construct a model airplane, measure distance, and calculate velocity. For this creative lesson students work in groups to build a model and use it to calculate distances and velocity.
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Concrete Canoes
Young scholars explore and analyze the relationship of buoyancy and displacement needed to make an object float. They examine various boat designs, then design and build clay and aluminum boats that hold a cargo of marbles.
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What Trickles Down?
Learners explore different levels of permeability and compare the permeabilities of several different materials. They are introduced to the basic concepts of building design, landscape architecture, and environmental pollutant transport....
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Following Directions
Students explore the way astronauts practice and train to improve their efficiency in completing challenging tasks. They time and graph how long it takes to follow a list of directions. Also, they determine how practice and repetition...
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Let's Make Stew!
Students investigate how to create a vegetable garden and complete related activities. In this vegetable garden activity, students receive agriculture notebooks to complete vocabulary for the gardening activity. Students read 'Still-Life...
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Olympic Metrics
Students study metric measurements related to Winter Olympic events are converted to their U.S. equivalents. (Younger students use an online metric converter; older students use a formula to calculate the measurements.) Work sheets are...
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The Chaos Game
Students measure and predict the behavior of a fractal. In this investigative activity students divide into groups, and participate in an activity that includes drawing triangles and coloring vertices.
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Computer Graphing
Students research the Internet or create surveys to find graphable data. They collect, organize, analyze and interpret the data. Finally, they choose the appropriate type of graph to display the data and find the measures of central...
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Crystals: What Are They and What Holds Them Together
Students are introduced to the characteristics of crystals and what keeps them together. Using the Periodic Table, they examine the various elements and develop a model of an atom. In groups, they place sugar and salt in petri dishes...
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Wave Properties
Students identify how waves transfer energy without transferring matter. They contrast transverse and compressional waves and relate wave speed, wavelength, amplitude and frequency. Lesson includes PowerPoint presentation.
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Is There A Formula for People?
Students explore proportions which are typical of the human body. Given a list of classic proportions from earlier centuries, students work in pairs to test the validity of the proportions. Pupils share their personal measurements. ...
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Flight Direction
Students are introduced to NASA's Connect Series and Flight Direction programs. They explore the world of aeronautics and their missions. Students receive a front role set to the concepts and skills involved with the various NASA programs.
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How Close Can You Get? Estimating
Students work collaboratively to determine how many crackers are in a large container. They then view a video to see how often people use estimation in their jobs, and another video to watch students work on figuring out appropriate...