Students are asked what do they recall about weather. They reasearch weather on the other planets of the solar system. Students work in groups and each group is assigned two planets. They create a display showing the weather on each...

Students design a space settlement for colonizing a planet in our solar system. In small groups, they play a space colony game and read an article about human needs in space to prepare for the design stage. They discuss their design...

Students construct a solar system model. In this space science lesson, students calculate the eccentricity of a planet's orbit. They calculate the period of a planet's revolution using Kepler's formula.

Middle schoolers explore how to visually identify asteroids in SDSS images. They are able to explain that stars are so far away that they do not appear to move, even over the course of a human lifespan. Students identify the location...

For this satellite and solar cells worksheet, students determine the electrical power generated by the solar cells on the IMAGE satellite. Students solve 3 problems including finding the usable area of the satellite, determining the...

In this magnetic energy worksheet, learners are given the formula to calculate the magnetic energy of an object. They use the formula to solve for the magnetic energy of the Earth, a geotail, the Sun, and a solar prominence given their...

Students are introduced to the Mayan Long Count calendar system. They work in groups to calculate the date of their birth and use the calendar to determine important Mayan dates.

Young scholars investigate the Aztec calendar. In this Aztec calendar instructional activity, students look at examples of Aztec calendars, both the solar and lunar calendars. They access web sites to further investigate the calendars...

Students watch video clips of endangered animals. They imagine a small garden in front of a house and describe the living and non-living things that could interact to make up a garden eco-system.

Students explore echolocation. For this bats science lesson, students compare sunlight reflecting off a mirror to sound waves hitting a bat's ears. Students complete a worksheet about bats.

Students explore the weather system by analyzing water properties. In this precipitation instructional activity, students review weather related vocabulary terms and discuss how rainbows are created by light hitting droplets at the right...

The different types of heating systems are listed here with a few details about each type.  The four slides inform your students about the efficiency and efficacy of the heat engines and renewable sources of energy.  

Middle schoolers place a pencil perpendicular to the ground and trace its shadow between 11:30 AM and 12:30 PM. They measure the length of the shadow, periodically over several hours, in either English or Metric units. Using the data,...

Students explore physics by completing measurement problems in class. In this speed of light lesson, students discuss the importance of knowing the speed of light and how it affects many aspects of human life on Earth. Students identify...

Very specific diameters are given for blowing up three different balloons to represent, in scale, the moon, Earth, and Mars. In groups of three, amateur astronomers explore scale measurements and distance in space.

Hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones are the same type of storm, but their names change based on where they happen. Scholars use a computer simulation to learn about hurricanes. Then they hypothesize ideas to prevent hurricanes...