Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Nutrition in Space

For Teachers Higher Ed
Students discover the importance of a healthy diet during space travel and examine the physiological changes astronauts experience while in space. In groups, they develop questions to determine an astronaut's food intake and identify...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Astronauts Train in Deep-Space Brine

For Teachers 5th - 9th
Students examine an article on astronauts training in deep space brine then discuss what they learned.  In this investigative lesson students get into groups and design an exercise that includes isolation, silence and conflict...
Lesson Plan
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Origins: Earth is Born

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Students collect and identify micrometeorites from space. Students create collection devices and retrieval methods for matter. They prepare slides and view particles found. Students discuss where the identifiable particles originated...
Lesson Plan
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Hubble Space Telescope

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students investigate the universe through the eyes of the Hubble space telescope. They conduct research from looking at the universe that is simulated with a digital projector. The images are projected onto the wall in a simulation of...
Lesson Plan
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A Leap of Space

For Teachers 1st - 4th
Students explore how smaller systems exist within larger systems as they build a collage of their place in space! Invite the students to display their posters and talk about their systems and systems of systems.
Lesson Plan
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Science: Not just Gold

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers articulate a possible relationship between arsenic and gold deposits in a written statement using data to substantiate the relationship they describe. They use real data to determine the source of the arsenic in the...
Lesson Plan
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Moving in Outer Space

For Teachers 2nd - 3rd
Students participate in a lesson that demonstrates the concepts of rotation and revolution as they pertain to the Sun, the moon, and the Earth. They examine the relative sizes of each. They watch a computer based movie at a subscription...
Lesson Plan
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Lewis and Clark: The Language of Discovery

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Young scholars replicate some of the trailblazing methods of Lewis and Clark on a fifteen-minute "writing journey" through the school or neighborhood.
Lesson Plan
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Let's Take a Rock Apart!

For Teachers K - 12th
Students examine a crushed rock and sort the minerals they find in that rock by color and other properties.
Lesson Plan
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Phase to Phase with the Moon

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders study the Moon phases. The lesson includes hands-on activities as well as web-based activities. They use models of the Moon and a lamp to study each of the phases of the Moon, and test their knowlege of the Moon on a web...
Lesson Plan
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Does Cloud Type Affect Rainfall?

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Student uses MY NASA DATA to obtain precipitation and cloud type data. They create graphs of data within MY NASA DATA. They compare different cloud types as well as precipitation types. They describe graphs of the precipitation and cloud...
Lesson Plan
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A Whole Lotta Shakin'

For Teachers 9th - 11th
Young scholars read first hand accounts of earthquake survivors in order to begin the describe the different types of earthquake waves and the order in which they arrive. They engage in using earthquake waves as a means to indirectly...
Lesson Plan
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Paper Rockets

For Teachers 4th - 10th
Students design, construct, and fly paper rockets that travel the greatest distance possible across a floor model of the solar system. They construct small flying rockets out of paper and propel them by blowing air through a straw.
Lesson Plan
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Scientist Tracking Network

For Teachers 8th - 9th
Students correlate surface radiation with mean surface temperature of several geographic regions. They observe how these parameters change with latitude and construct an understanding of the relationship of solar radiation to seasonal...
Lesson Plan
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2.0 "Water Is Life" Global Water Awareness Mini-Unit (Grades3-5)

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Students study the amount of potable water on the Earth. In this water lesson, students examine the amount of potable water as compared to all the water on the Earth. They discuss why many parts of the world do not have access to good...
Lesson Plan
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Dust in the Wind; Chemicals in the Water

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore mechanical and chemical weathering at stations. They articulate some mechanisms of chemical and mechanical weathering through exploration in a lab. Students stations describe how chemical weathering differs from...
Lesson Plan
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Voyage to Kure Viewing Guide

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Young scholars complete a worksheet while viewing a video about the oceans. They locate the oceans on a map and identify positive and negative ways in which humans have impacted them. They discuss any questions at the end of the lesson.
Lesson Plan
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Weather

For Teachers 2nd - 6th
Students explore the earth's atmosphere, weather, and climate. They begin class with a discussion about weather patterns, atmosphere, and the layers of the earth. After the class discussion, students rotate through four stations to...
Lesson Plan
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Dig Into Ireland

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore environments and wildlife of Ireland to find out how they were formed, and how they helped form Irish culture. Students research online to determine connections between present elements in Irish culture and wildlife and...
Lesson Plan
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"Water is Life" Global Water Awareness

For Teachers 6th - 9th
Students examine and calculate the percentage of potable water remaining on the earth. In this ecology and geography lesson, students brainstorm the main factors affecting water distribution. Students use mathematical problem solving to...
Lesson Plan
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The Fact of Global Warming

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Students investigate the harmful impact of global warming by reading news articles.  In this environmental care lesson, students analyze an article about the Kyoto Protocol and its goal of saving our environment.  Students...
Lesson Plan
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A Rock Cycle Shower

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students classify rocks as sedimentary, igneous or metamorphic based on physical properties. In this earth science lesson, students recreate the rock cycle using a set of stones placed on labeled shower curtain. They explain the...
Lesson Plan
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Create a Cloud in a Bottle

For Teachers K - 5th
Students look at how clouds form. In this cloud lesson, students make a cloud using water,  2 liter bottles and a match. They watch how the pressure and temperature changes the atmosphere in the bottle to create a cloud. 
Lesson Plan
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Seasonal Cloud Cover Variations

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students, in groups, access data from the NASA website Live Access Server regarding seasonal cloud coverage and the type of clouds that make up the coverage. They graph the data and make correlations between types, seasons and percentages.