How many of your students know that even today new species are being found all over the globe? Introduce them to the amazing diversity our planet houses with a creative activity about animal variation and classification. They'll use a...

Biotechnology changes lives every day, but how did it all start? Learn about Cohen and Boyer's technique for recombinant DNA and the founding of this new scientific study. Then, scholars use the online interactive to discover how Hanahan...

Eighth graders explore seven terrestrial biomes. They compare relationships between children, parents and friends to interactions among species. After observing pictures of types of interaction, 8th graders describe the predator-prey...

Celebrate the geography of the Americas and develop map skills through a series of activities focused on the Western Hemisphere. Learners study everything from earthquakes and volcanoes of the Americas and the relationship...

Students explore ways that plants and insects impact each other, identify how different types of mouthparts allow insects to use plants in different ways, and design an insect and a plant to demonstrate mutualism.

What a great classroom resource! The intention of this lesson is to show that real-world math can and should be applied to the community in which your students reside. The class relates properties of equations to solving for species...

Students study facts about Florida panthers. In this Florida panther lesson, students read a page of fun facts about the panther's life cycle, habitats, predators, and families. They complete three worksheets with information from the...

How many animals can live in a climate as cold as Mount Everest's? Find out with a science lesson all about biodiversity. Activities include research, presentations, group work, coloring maps, and a simulation of a food web.

Students use an interactive web-based food web game to gain familiarity with tropic levels and interactions. They already understand that in an ecosystem there are four basic tropic levels: producers, primary consumers, secondary...

Students practice using a dichotomous key. In this classification lesson, students read an article about scientific exploration and identification of new species. They use a dichotomous key to identify objects and create their own key.

Students are introduced to the animals of Asia. In this biodiversity instructional activity, students use interactive maps to identify animals from Asia, then play a memory game to reinforce the information.

Students investigate living organisms and define the properties of a living species.  In this life characteristic lesson plan, students examine plants in their class and discuss whether or not they are alive.  Students create a...

Animals and plants develop relationships and rely on each other to survive. Pupils learn more about symbiosis through a video, a hands-on matching activity, and a game. They differentiate and describe each type on a written evaluation.

Examine how living and non-living things work together in a reading passage about ecosystems. Class members read the text and then respond to five response questions that relate specifically to the content of the passage.

Using GPS units, small groups participate in a scavenger hunt to find an object that you have hidden. They use coordinates for stopping points along a pre-planned path to get to the final cache. This is a terrific activity to include in...

Who knew determining author's purpose could be turned into a game? Four teams compete to correctly identify the author's purpose for writing a series of passages.

Eighth graders list the steps of Darwin's natural selection. They demonstrate the process of natural selection in a predation activity. Students create paper origami frogs to race across the floor and analyze the differences in the...

Strict habitat requirements are needed for the survival of fish populations and fish variety in the Great Lakes. Young scientists become experts in the basic needs of fish and understand how survival necessities can vary with different...

Students investigate their environment by growing plants in class.  In this botany instructional activity, students discuss the lifespan of plants and animals and how they must be cared for continuously over time.  Students...

Eighth graders investigate the concept of nature versus nurture in human development through this series of lessons.

Students study Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift and how the continents were connected in one large land mass called Pangaea. They examine plate tectonics and the theory that the earth's surface is composed of large moving...

Ninth graders describe the six levels of ecological organizations and give examples of each. They also differentiate between food chains and webs and identify trophic and consumer levels in food chain and food webs.

Students explain the classification process of organisms. In this biology lesson, students practice writing the names of organisms scientifically. They answer the dichotomous key and discuss answers as a class.