Core Knowledge Foundation
Plants Tell It Again!™ Read-Aloud Anthology
A 190-page anthology explores the life and parts of plants, flowers, and trees while boosting reading comprehension skills. Literature and informational texts showcase Johnny Appleseed and George Washington Carver. Lessons follow the...
Core Knowledge Foundation
Taking Care of the Earth Tell It Again!™ Read-Aloud Anthology
A read-aloud anthology closely examines human impact on the Earth while boosting reading comprehension skills. Through stories, scholars examine the concepts of natural resources, pollution, garbage, and recycling and brainstorm ways to...
Curated OER
Rachel's Life is in a Hole
Explore how lack of access to water impacts peoples' lives in poor countries. Through text reading and discussion, middle schoolers are presented with the story of a young girl who lives and functions with limited water resources. They...
National Geographic
Animal Habitats
Explore animal habitats and reinforce speaking, listening, reading comprehension, and writing skills with a unit that focuses on the Arctic, desert, ocean, prairie, and rainforest. Enthusiastic scientists read informational text to...
Curated OER
Critical Thinking Strategies
Students explore critical thinking strategies. For this critical thinking lesson, students evaluate multiple choice answers. Students note similarities between incorrect answers and discover how to compare and contrast incorrect and...
Serendip
Golden Rice – Evaluating the Pros and Cons
More than half the world's population eats rice as a daily staple ... imagine if that rice could prevent illness. Scientists genetically engineered rice to include vitamin A for just that purpose. However, room for debate still exists....
Lerner Publishing
Living or Nonliving
It's alive! Or is it? Through a series of shared readings, whole class activities, and independent exercises children explore the difference between living and non-living things, creating a pair of printable books to demonstrate their...
Earth Day Network
Healthy Earth, Sick Earth
Earth is sick and needs our help! Read the children's book Planet Earth Gets Well to explain the various problems facing the planet, discussing what young conservationists can do to heal the planet along the way. A great Earth Day...
Virginia Department of Education
Weather Patterns and Seasonal Changes
Get your class outside to observe their surroundings with a activity highlighting weather patterns and seasonal changes. First, learners take a weather walk to survey how the weather affects animals, people, plants, and trees during...
New York State Education Department
TASC Transition Curriculum: Workshop 10
How have educational standards evolved? Educators of adults examine expectations in the 10th workshop out of 15 to better determine how standards have grown. Participants respond to a variety of sample questions to determine how they...
Water
Global Water Supply Middle School Curriculum
We take a steady shower stream and clean drinking water for granted, but in many countries around the world, the lack of water or a clean water supply is responsible for higher sickness and death rates. Taking a closer look at the water...
Curated OER
An Exploration of Cradle-to-Cradle Design Thinking
Introduce cradle-to-cradle design thinking. Scholars first discuss the importance of natural laws and rights. They then use a variety of online and print resources to research eco-efficiency and cradle-to-cradle design.
Safe Drinking Water Foundation
Making a Difference
After learning about the effects of water pollution, your class will discuss ways to make people in their community aware of the importance of water conservation. Then, your young environmentalists will write a letter to the local...
PBS
The Impact of Genetically Modified Seeds
What is all the fuss about genetically modified foods? PBS provides this resource designed to supplement the documentary Food, Inc. to help learners investigate the benefits and controversies of genetically modified foods for individuals...
Curated OER
Food Chain
Students discuss what makes plants grow and who eats the plants. They are asked where do we get all of our energy? Students are asked to draw and label a picture of the sun in the center of the yellow strip of paper. They are explained...
Curated OER
Amazon Rainforest Conservation, Brazil
Learners explore the concept of understanding the effects of disturbances in an environment. In this life science lesson, students use the game Jenga to help capture the idea of environment disturbances. Learners discuss the effects of...