What's life like aboard an ocean exploration vessel? Junior oceanographers examine the important role of communication in ocean research in lesson two of a five-part series from NOAA. The materials introduce the class to life on...

Emerging nutritionists explore what it means to be healthy. In the beginning of the unit, your class will examine the five food groups and learn how food gets from the farm to our plates. This leads into the investigation of...

Introduce materials science with a class demonstration. After showing a PowerPoint presentation on materials and their properties, instructors provide a ceramic tile, a Popsicle stick, a paper clip, and a plastic bag as examples of...

Hot off the presses, this collection of thermal energy activities, lessons, and printables is sure to amaze. Demonstrate how thermal energy moves about in a system using simple materials. Pupils demonstrate their understanding...

El Nino, La Nina ... and the Santa Maria? The 11th installment of a 23-part NOAA Enrichment in Marine sciences and Oceanography (NEMO) program explains the mechanism of El Nino/Southern Oscillation. Pupils use previous data to determine...

Earth or environmental science pupils are assigned to be carbon sources or sinks. They ask yes-or-no questions to try to figure out which one they are. Then they discuss ways people can have positive effects on the changing climate by...

Pupils often wonder how we know the distance to various stars. Starting with a thought experiment and progressing to a physical experiment, they determine the brightness and distance to various stars. The evaluation requires...

Three activities make up a solar system lesson that features the sun, its light, and the shadows it produces. Scholars step outside to discover the changes shadows make at different times of day, take part in a demonstration of...

Can you disprove the law of conservation of mass? Pupils observe the teacher weigh each part of a reaction. Then, the teacher weighs the result of the reaction and everyone sees that the products do not equal the reactants. Then they...

Time to rock out! Discover the "life" cycle of the average rock using an illustrative stations lab and stimulating pairs game. Roll the dice to determine your fate: will it be melting in magma or chilling out to form igneous rock? The...

Scientists have been studying exothermic reactions before they were cool. The lesson begins with a discussion and a demonstration of heat curves. Scholars then determine the heat of fusion of ice and the heat needed to...

A radio receives radio signals, converts them to an electrical signal, then converts this signal to a sound signal, and amplifies the sound so people can hear it. Class members use this information to create a short-wave radio antenna...

Here is part one of a two-part lesson in which scholars investigate the changing states of water—liquid, solid, and gas. With grand conversation and up to three demonstrations, learners make predictions about what they think will happen...

Now it becomes crystal clear why the unit is called Mixtures and Solutions. The fifth installment of a six-part unit explores mixtures and solutions. After viewing a demonstration on mixing pebbles with water, salt with water, and...

Electrical current going round and round,produces a magnetic field. After a demonstration of the magnetic field surrounding an electrical wire, class members use the provided formula associated with Biot-Savart's Law to calculate the...

Teach your class how to get out of a cell — or break in. The third installment in a seven-part series introduces the class to cell membranes and their functions. The lesson plan includes information to present to the class,...

The fifth lesson in the six part series introduces units of energy including calories, Calories, and joules. Scholars determine the energy released when eating a snack and during activity.

Introduce your class to nanotechnology applications with three demonstrations that showcase scientific principles related to ferrofluids, quantum dots, and gold nanoparticles. Groups will work more closely with these applications in the...

Make sound visible with an activity that provides directions for how to build a vocal visualizer meant to create light patterns. Making noise into the visualizer causes a mirror to vibrate, reflecting a laser beam, and creating...

Are these two light sources the same? Groups use a white card and a little cooking oil to create a photometer that allows for the comparison of two lights. The Inverse Square Law provides a way to calculate the actual difference in...

Make music. Class members construct a simple record player using a paper cone and a pin. The resource provides a description of what is happening and why listeners can hear the sounds through the cone. 

A PowerPoint presents features of polymers and two of its categories (thermoplastics and thermosets). Instructors conduct demonstrations to illustrate the Weissenberg Effect and the Barus & Kaye Effects of polymers in the first...

Eddy currents, Faraday's Law and Lenz's Law provide the connection between train brakes and and MRI machines in a lesson that asks teachers to provided the material needed so the pupils can understand the properties of changing magnetic...