Teach Engineering
Egg Drop
Don't drop the ball on the resource ... drop an egg instead! A teacher-led demonstration has the class consider how to drop eggs into glasses when a tray is in the way. Hint: If you've ever seen a magician pull a tablecloth off a table,...
Teach Engineering
Live Like an Animal
When your parents say that your room's a pig sty, tell them about biomimicry. The sixth installment of a nine-part Life Science unit has scholars research the shelters used by animals in the natural world, like turtle shells. Using the...
Teach Engineering
Messin' with Mixtures
Do you separate your trail mix before eating it? Then you've been separating mixtures your whole life! Scholars model a contaminated soil sample using trail mix and estimate the percentage of each component. They consider how to clean up...
Teach Engineering
Egg-cellent Landing
The classic egg-drop experiment gets a new bounce with an activity that asks pairs to design a lander similar to one used to land a rover on Mars within a fixed budget. The activity provides a great introduction to the idea of...
Teach Engineering
Amusement Park Ride: The Ups and Downs in Design
Groups design the ultimate roller coaster by considering potential and kinetic energy. They test their designs using marbles and then go on to rate each group's design based on aesthetics, loop diameter, and cost.
Curated OER
Interactive Fractions
Middle schoolers determine the common denominator of two unlike fractions. They practice adding fractions and finding equivalent fractions of numbers. They compare and contrast different types of equations involving fractions and...
Curated OER
Virtual Field Trip
Are we there yet? Young trip planners learn about their state and plan a trip. They will select sites to see in three cities in their state, and record associated costs in a spreadsheet. While this was originally designed as a...
Teach Engineering
The Advantage of Machines
Show your students how to make their work easier. The first lesson in a series of 10 introduces the class to work and the way simple machines can be make work easier. The simple machines scholars can find in everyday items are...
Curated OER
Computer Careers Cube
Students use the internet to research the types of careers in technology. Using construction paper, they draw themselves in one or two of the careers they found interesting. To end the lesson, they share their drawings with the class and...
Curated OER
What Percentage of Time Do You Spend Doing Daily Activities?
Engage your kids with an intriguing, real-life exploration that covers several areas in math, and allows for natural academic differentiation.
Curated OER
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who Needs Math in Life at All?
Students think and talk about the ways in which they use math throughout the day. They add each way to a "math in real life" bulletin board and reflect in writing on the ways they use math.
Curated OER
Discovering Dewey's Decimal System
Young scholars discover the Dewey Decimal System. In this fractions lesson, students utilize education software to discover how the Dewey Decimal System works. Young scholars create a PowerPoint presentation in groups or a...
Curated OER
I'm Late, I'm Late, for a Radioactive Date!
Through the use of an interactive Web site, students explore C-14 and C-14 dating. Then students analyze an article written about the C-14 dating of the Shroud of Turin and draw conclusions.
Curated OER
Volume and Surface Area: Which Is More?
Students explore the volume and surface area of three dimensional figures. Through the use of video, students discover three dimensional shapes, their uses in real-life applications, and methods used to calculate their volume and surface...
Curated OER
Count The Letters
Students perform activities involving ratios, proportions and percents. Given a newspaper article, groups of students count the number of letters in a given area. They use calculators and data collected to construct a pie chart and bar...
Curated OER
Ratios, Mars and the Internet
Students calculate real ratios that exist between the planets Earth and Mars. After a lecture/demo, students use worksheets and access Internet sites to do their calculations.
Curated OER
Animal Skin
Students investigate the skin surface to body area ratios for different animals. In this seventh/eighth grade mathematics/science lesson, students explore heat transfer between an animal’s body and the environment. Using...
Teach Engineering
The Building Blocks of Matter
Everything can be reduced to atoms. The first installment of a six-part Mixtures and Solutions unit focuses on the building blocks of matter. Scholars review basic atomic structure, including protons, neutrons, and electrons, in...
Kenan Fellows
A Farmer’s Challenge to Breed to the Greatest of Grapes
What does your class know about GMOs? Are they savvy to selective breeding? Challenge young minds to engineer the greatest crop of all time using a hands-on genetics unit. Learners discover the good and bad details of selective breeding,...
NASA
Lava Layering
Take the old baking soda and vinegar volcano to the next level by using it to study repeated lava flows over time, examine geologic features on Earth and Mars, and speculate about some of the formations on Mars.
Teach Engineering
Stormy Skies
Young meteorologists examine the four main types of weather fronts and how they appear on a weather map. Participants learn about the difference between the types of weather fronts along with their distinguishing features. A...
Teach Engineering
Manned Mission to Mars
To go or to not to go — the question for a mission to Mars. This resource provides details for a possible manned mission to Mars. Details include a launch schedule, what life would be like on the surface, and how the astronauts would...
Teach Engineering
Properties of Mixtures vs. Solutions: Mix It Up!
Now it becomes crystal clear why the unit is called Mixtures and Solutions. The fifth installment of a six-part unit explores mixtures and solutions. After viewing a demonstration on mixing pebbles with water, salt with water, and...
Teach Engineering
Global Climate Change
The greenhouse effect and its relationship to global warming is the focus of an activity that asks class member to consider the effects of climate change on weather. Pupils work with their families to determine their carbon...