Berkeley Engineering and Mentors
Marshmallow Catapaults
After a brief lecture on levers, torque, projectiles, and the five-step engineering design cycle, young physical science learners or engineers build catapults out of craft sticks. This is an open-ended exploration of what works and what...
Peace Corps
Celebrating Our Connections Through Water
Water is vital for survival, but how does it help global cultures flourish? Elementary and middle schoolers learn about the different cultures around the world that celebrate water and incorporate it into their festivals or traditions.
American Physiological Society
Sit On It
How do product designers come up with the variety of things we see in stores and on TV every day? They identify a need, then create something that meets that need. Sounds simple, right? A two-week instructional activity puts seventh...
Curated OER
Musical Mountain
Students listen to low, middle, and high pitches of music and identify if they are low, middle, or high. In this musical pitch lesson plan, students visually see low, middle, and high pitches on a mountain.
Curated OER
Fighting The Horse Race: Creating Ads Which Explore 2008 Presidential Candidates & Issues
What is advertising? What role does it plan in an election? Middle and high schoolers discuss advertising and its purpose by sifting through different magazines and discussing the products they find. Then they relate advertisements to...
Curated OER
Web Designs: A Story Comes Alive
Pupils work cooperatively to choose a theme, write a story, and produce a web site to display this story in this middle-level lesson on the career of a web designer. This excellent lesson ends with an organized, web site launch party.
Curated OER
Creating a Memorial Day Poster Poem
Does your class know about the meaning of Memorial Day? Discuss the history of the holiday in this lesson, which prompts elementary and middle schoolers to create word webs of ideas about the holiday. Additionally, they create poems...
Curated OER
A Creative Presentation
Bring writing to life with this lesson in which elementary and middle schoolers create a display of the imagery they identify in a series of Gary Paulsen books. They read the suggested materials, identify imagery and descriptive...
Curated OER
Exploring Film Genres for Telling Hero Stories: Narrative Shorts
Students research that a narrative film tells a story using camera movement, sound, lighting, editing and other film making techniques. The audience must be taken into consideration when making a film. They explore what makes their hero...
Curated OER
Designing "Green" to Save Our Green Planet
Students design an environmentally friendly home. In this middle school math/science lesson, students watch videos on creating green design. Students work in collaborative groups to determine what makes a house green and to design a...
Curated OER
The Magic Apple
First graders read The Magic Apple and complete interdisciplinary activities related to the book.  In this folktale instructional activity, 1st graders answer comprehension questions, recognize and record short /i/  sound words and...
Curated OER
Soil, Designing the Small Farm of the Future
Students examine the history of farming. In this environmental farming lesson plan, students explore the web and complete a variety of activities in order to understand the necessity of local, sustainable, and small farms for the future....
Curated OER
Shadow Puppetry in South India
Students read a variety of literature from India, including folktales and fables. They then select a scene or story to script, work together to design and craft shadow puppets of characters and scenery, narrate a story, manipulate the...
Curated OER
Create An Ending
Students create a new ending for a familiar story that stand alone with a clear beginning, middle and end. As a class, students review a familiar text focusing on plot and character development. In small groups, students work...
Curated OER
Eloquent Speech
Second graders discover that oral and written communication can be improved, and made to sound more eloquent, when the following questions are addressed; Who? What? Where? When? Why? students use word processing to copy a poem using clip...
Curated OER
Radio Show
Students work in groups to write a radio drama based on an event or period in history. They write commericals that are appropriate for the radio age and create sound effects. The radio shows are recorded using an iPod and a voice...
Curated OER
1st Grade - Act. 16: Dancing Mice
First graders creating mouse attached to a helium balloon, and dance around to the sound of some fun music.
Curated OER
Creating A Movie
Young scholars create and share movies using multimedia tools and the Windows Movie Maker software in this middle-level technology lesson. The lesson suggests the use of an Interactive Whiteboard, laptops, and digital cameras to create...
Curated OER
Reading ABC's
Students create a slide presentation that contains text, images, sounds, and navigation buttons. They explore PowerPoint and use the different tools and basic slide-creation options.
Curated OER
E.T. Phone Home
Middle schoolers participate in a game designed to help them focus on listening skills. They divide into team and choose one member to go into the middle of the field. They in the middle of the field are blindfolded, spun and 'called'...
Curated OER
Move Over, Beethoven
Second graders create an ABA introductory composition using various, student-chosen sound sources. They create their composition in small groups and perform them for the class.
Curated OER
Noise Levels, Bar Graphing, and Fractions
Students research items that can damage hearing. They explore statistics about the decibels of certain objects. From the information collected, students create a bar graph. They formulate ratios to determine what sounds are harmful to...
Curated OER
Visual Puns or Composite Imagery
Students discover art that contains composite imagery and visual puns. They create their own picture of composite imagery and explain the visual pun. Students develop skills using the drawing media.
Curated OER
Multi-sensory Writing
Middle schoolers use their senses to help describe special place they have been. They write short sensory-image essay that incorporate all five of their senses, and identify sensory language while reading different pieces of literature.