Fourth graders investigate insulators and how refrigerators actually work to keep things cold through evaporation and pressure changes in the coolant. They create a box to keep an ice cube from melting, and observe a variety of...

Students investigate energy consumption by researching wattage.  In this electricity lesson, students discuss how electricity works and gets transferred to our electronic devices through generators and circuits.  Students...

Is everything really connected? Take your class on a walk outside, where they will make observations and write them down on a worksheet. Once they are back in the classroom, learners will work to determine if and how things like birds,...

An excellent instructional activity awaits your young scientists! In it, learners are invited to explore the world of pulleys, levers, and planes; simple machines that make lifting heavy things much, much easier. They watch video, and...

Students explain basic principles of aeronautics such as gravity and lift. In this How Things Fly lesson, students visit the interactive, hands-on How Things Fly gallery at the Smithsonian. Students perform three experiments that...

Sure to be a hit with your charges, here is a science lesson that has lots of hands-on activities packed into it. The focus is simple machines, and how they help us perform work. After a discussion and demonstration session, groups of...

Learners examine job opportunities and how things in their lives influence their choices. In this investigative lesson students complete a worksheet and several exercises.

"Life is more risk management, rather than exclusion of risks." -Walter Wriston. Scholars use provided mortality data to determine how likely it is a person will die from a particular cause. They compare the data to the perception of the...

Learners discuss the concept of the common good. Using primary source documents, they read accounts from volunteers in the Dominican Republic and discuss how they work for the common good. They reflect on the topic in their journals to...

Students identify how to classify living things. They classify various concepts including family members, kinds of clothing, numbers, shapes, and vocabulary words. They discuss how to classify various concepts and classify pictures of...

Students explore the concept of classification. In this classification lesson, students collaborate to create lists of living thing similarities in order to differentiate between living and non-living things. Students create a list of...

High schoolers analyze the way atoms function and how they combine to form molecules and various compounds. Using a software program, they create a diagram of an atom and write a summary about their functions. They complete a worksheet...

Students inquire about visual arts by reading a children's book in class. In this Keith Haring lesson, students examine the book Nina's Book of Little Things and create their own drawings based on their personal life. Students emulate...

Students participate in a scavenger hunt using their sense of sight. They bring various texture materials from home and discuss how things feel. Students identify the smells inside five jars. They discuss things they hear and why hearing...

First graders construct a KWL chart on sound. In this physics activity, 1st graders describe different ways to produce sound. They explain how sound waves propagate.

Learners are introduced to how they produce sounds. In groups, they participate in experiments in which they measure sound and identify their five senses. Individually, they make their own musical instruments using different objects and...

Third graders create aquariums or terrariums to explain how creatures depend on living and nonliving things.

Students study concepts of energy and energy transfer. They look at how these concepts apply to musical instruments. They study the law of conservation of energy. They use the concepts studied in the lesson plan to design a musical...

Students research previous attempts by scientists to discover the ways in which the brain works, design and conduct an experiment to illustrate current research and present their findings to the class.

Middle schoolers design a closed system to test the relationships between plants and animals. They monitor abiotic fluctuations within this living system by using a chemical test kit. They observe how living organisms respond to...

Students investigate energy sources by examining photographs.  In this atomic energy lesson,  students identify and describe various pictures and how atomic energy is used in them.  Students create a presentation...

Students are introduced to how the process of evolution works. As a class, they review the characteristics of natural selection and how those with advantageous traits reproduce and survive. To test this theory of natural selection,...

Fifth graders explore how a plane can stay aloft. In this engineless airplane flying lesson, 5th graders experiment to find how the design of a plane and Bernoulli's principle keep planes in the air. Student's create a plane and answer...

In this water cycle instructional activity, 3rd graders conduct an experiment where they observe and calculate how water transpires in different types of trees.  Students engage in a class discussion and use Venn Diagrams to compare...