Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What is the Best Insulator: Air, Styrofoam, Foil, or Cotton?

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students investigate the properties of insulators by attempting to keep a cup of water from freezing, and once it is frozen, to keep it from melting. They conduct the experiment, record and analyze the results, and answer discussion...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Design Your Own Rube Goldberg Machine

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students design and construct a Rube Goldberg machine that accomplishes a simple task in at least ten steps. They view and discuss various Rube Goldberg designs, identify types of simple machines, and in small groups produce a schematic...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Earthquakes Rock!

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Young scholars study the main methods to measure earthquakes; the Richter Scale and Mercalli Scale. They make a model of a seismograph and investigate which structural designs are most likely to survive an earthquake.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Riding the Radio Waves

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students examine the basic concepts of radio waves and magnetic fields. They study how the AM radios are built and demonstrate the concepts of amplitude and frequency.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

A Recipe for Air

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students create a pie graph using M&Ms to demonstrate the composition of air. They label each section of the graph, and list the fractions from largest to smallest.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Let's Heat Things Up!

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Young scholars build and evaluate simple models to understand the greenhouse effect. They explore the role of increased greenhouse gas concentration in global warming, and the implications of global warming theory for engineers,...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

TE Lesson: Pollution Solutions

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students study how industrial technology helps clean up and prevent air pollution. They role play as engineers to examine methods of engineering pollutant recovery methods such as scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators, cyclones, and...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Rock Solid

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students investigate the three types of material stress related to rocks. They watch a PowerPoint Presentation, view an online animation of the three types of rock stress, identify the various types of rocks, answer true or false...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Solid Waste Takes Over

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students explore solid waste and its effects on the environment. They explain some of the major problems caused by waste disposal and the use of landfills. They suggest ways to reduce the amount of solid waste going into a landfill.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Dirty Water Project

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students investigate different methods (aeration and filtering) for removing pollutants from water. They design and build their own water filters. Students identify the pollutants in a water sample using sight and smell, explore what...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Geography: examining the Glacial Features of Cape Cod

For Teachers 6th - 10th
Students examine satellite images of the glacial features of Cape Cod. They analyze where human activity is located in terms of those features. Students make models of the features, including kettle holes. They also use contour maps...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Microclimates of Our School

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students read the story "Weslandia" by Paul Fleischman, define the term microclimate, gather and record data in various places on school grounds to establish the presence of difference microclimates, analyze and compare microclimates,...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Properties of Salt

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Learners discuss certain properties of salt and how it is used every day as well as harmful uses. They experiment with salt to see it conduct electricity, form crystals and water freezing temperature. They complete a worksheet to record...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Binary Coding

For Teachers K - 5th
Students identify different uses and forms of coding information, such as memory chips, discuss and create list of everyday items in which memory devices are used, watch video, play Bits and Bytes Game, and use binary code to encode and...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Dinosaur Diner

For Teachers K - 4th
Students explore the food chain. In this dinoaur lesson, students identify charactersitics of an omnivore, carnivore, and herbivore. Students sort dinosaur picture/word cards into groups by their eating characteristics. Students also...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Relative Ratios

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Learners discover that proportions are made up of equal ratios each containing the same building blocks. They, using the Internet, apply their knowledge of direct relationships and proportions to problems in planetary science.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What Happened to the Water? Designing Ways to Get and Clean Water

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students design ways to clean a water source or find a new water source depending on various hypothetical family scenarios. They draw and write about how to provide water to a community facing a water crisis, and present their solutions...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Conflict Diamonds

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students examine how diamonds are portrayed in American culture. They identify the political and social implications of conflict diamonds and the locations of these diamonds in Africa. They evaluate the effectiveness of the Kimberley...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Compost

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students expand their understanding of solid waste management. They examine the effects of packaging decisions. They study engineering advancements in packaging materials and solid waste management.
Lesson Plan
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TE Activity: Hot Cans and Cold Cans

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students work on problems in which they investigate conduction, convection, and radiation. They attempt to maintain the warmth in one can of soda while cooling the other as much as possible in a thirty minute period. They examine how...
Lesson Plan
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Graze Like a Cow

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students explore how a cow digests the grass they eat. In this science/math instructional activity, students compare the quality of forage. Additionally, students determine the effects of rangeland health on the production.
Lesson Plan
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Conditions at Sea Introductory Activity, Making Waves

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students explore waves and wind. In this physical and earth science wave activity, students participate in a wave making activity with an aquarium and a hair dryer. Students complete a data chart recording wave height and related...
Lesson Plan
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Approaching Limits

For Teachers 8th - 12th Standards
With the assistance of their Ti-84/Ti-83 Plus calculators, students develop a foundation for the limiting process as well as estimate limits from graphs and tables of values. They view how a function behaves as the input approaches a...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

TI-Nspire Activity: What Does Your Representation Tell You?

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed Standards
By learning to select the best representation for three meal plans, students compare three meal plans to determine the best choice. Data for the meal plans is sorted on a table, as an algebraic equation, and graphed on a coordinate grid....