Explore the geometry of treasure hunting! Learners use geometry to design a treasure recovery strategy. The objective is to create a design that minimizes the amount of work required. Budding mathematicians use properties of triangles as...

What do physicists and musicians have in common? A lot more than you might think. After first viewing a slide show presentation and completing a series of skills practice worksheets on the physics of light, sound, and...

Determine physical properties of potential packaging materials. Continuing from previous lessons in the series, the resource asks groups to identify physical properties of the substances. They test for conductivity, solubility, water...

Bring some energy to your physical science curriculum with this engaging Bill Nye the Science Guy activity. Based on his Renewable Energy video, students explore the concepts of potential and kinetic energy and learn how they are applied...

Oh nuts! Do macadamias or almonds produce more thermal energy? Energy enthusiasts find out with this experiment. The objective is to demonstrate to your class how the chemical energy contained in foods can be converted into useable...

Warm up to the idea of solar energy. A lesson includes three activities that challenge scholars to apply knowledge in new ways. First, they learn to run an alarm clock without a battery by using solar energy. Next, they complete an...

Test the limits of gravity while encouraging full class participation with this thrilling lesson. Pupils investigate the meaning of work and how it is equivalent to energy. They explore the joule and apply it as a unit of work. They...

What happens to a volume when you scale the dimensions of a rectangular prism? For this problem, a box of clay is increased in each dimension, with the intent to see if learners can generalize the result. The addition of...

Young geologists get a glimpse beneath the earth's surface in this plate tectonics investigation. After first learning about the different layers of the earth and the constant movement of its plates, young...

Have you ever wanted to build a conductor? Here is a lesson plan that takes pupils through building a conductor based on Drude's model in order to better understand electricity.

You've located buried treasure, now what? Explore how to use algebraic and geometric methods to determine where to place a recovery ship based on the location of the treasure.

Young scientists learn that seeing isn't necessarily believing when it comes to the states of matter. After performing a fun class demonstration that models the difference between solids, liquids, and gases, children complete a series of...

What is "viral marketing" and how does it relate to mathematics? Young mathematicians use exponential functions to develop a mathematical model for a business advertising campaign. Learners then see how their campaigns increase...

It's a snow day, and two brothers attending schools with different schedules each got a late start to the day. But who had the shorter school day? That's what your class will find out as they apply their knowledge of fractions to this...

Fold, fold, and fold some more. In the first installment of a 35-part module, young mathematicians fold a piece of paper in half until it can not be folded any more. They use the results of this activity to develop functions for the area...

Programming a robot is a mathematical task! The activity asks learners to examine the process of programming a robot to vacuum a room. They use a coordinate plane to model the room, write equations to represent movement, determine the...

Here is a great problem-solving activity for young mathematicians. Intended solely for instructional purposes, the activity is appropriate for learners to add four numbers together. Not only must they add four numbers together,...

Pupils design a fence for a backyard pool. Scholars develop a fence design based on given constraints, determine the amount of material they need, and calculate the cost of the project. 

If members of your class wonder where they can use the math they learn in middle school, let them discover the answer. Learners apply geometry concepts of scale and measure to calculate the costs of framing a house addition.

It's the stairway to learning! Scholars research all aspects of building a staircase. Using information from building codes, they write and graph a system of inequalities to analyze the constraints. The completed project is a scale model...