Curated OER
Wildlife Burrows
Burrowing animals are busy! Get your middle school ecologists busy as well by having them create a scale model of a burrowing population. They also design a PowerPoint or poster to explain their models.
National Wildlife Federation
Massive Migrations: Grades K-4
Bird migration is a fascinating behavior. Budding scientists experience their own migrations using the school grounds for their flight patterns. They follow a map that leads them through a migration pattern that includes stops for...
National Park Service
Aspect, Treeline, and Climate
Head to the treeline and beyond to examine how this feature of the landscape affects weather and climate, which gives scientists clues about its health. Class members' observations of photographs provide the data that drives the...
Curated OER
2005 Hidden Ocean Expedition What's Eating You?
Analyze data and make inferences about the trophic position of organisms in the Canada marine food web. After a review of the geography and formula, discuss results and write an essay to improve the understanding of Artic food webs.
Curated OER
Goldilocks and the Real Bears
Students participate in a comparison lesson where they compare fictional bears to real life bears. In this science/language arts lesson, students read Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Students observe characteristics of these fictional...
Curated OER
Global Warming
First graders discover the effects of global warming on polar bears. For this life science lesson, 1st graders model the polar bear's habitat and observe what happens as they raise the temperature. They record their observation in the...
Curated OER
Animals of Madagascar
Students are each assigned an animal from Madagascar. They research their animal and design a picture book about their animal. Students design a cover page, back page, bibliography page and the title page. Their book will contain...
Curated OER
Polar Pals: Polar Bears & Penguins
First graders complete a variety of activities about polar bears and penguins including the "Blubber Mitten" experiment. They culminate the unit by creating a visual representation comparing and contrasting the two animals.
Curated OER
It Bears Repeating!!!
Young scholars research bears and their characteristics with a specific study on North American bears and polar bears. In this bear study lesson, students read books about polar bears and wild bears. Young scholars complete activities to...
Curated OER
Endangered Lands & Threatened Species Collage Mural
Fifth graders create a class collage mural illustrating endangered lands and threatened species. They also write letters protesting the exploitation of endangered habitats and the destruction of flora and fauna.
Polar Trec
Family Polar Fun Day
Family fun days are great for connecting home and school life, building strong parent/teacher relationships, and engaging students in a fun and social way. Here are several activity ideas to help you and your class run your own Family...
Prince William Network
Migration Math Madness
A great way to incorporate math into life science, this lesson has learners measure migratory routes on a map and calculate the actual distance that shorebirds on the routes would cover. Learners compute the distance covered in both...
Prince William Network
The Incredible Journey
Divide your school gym into breeding grounds and non-breeding grounds so that your zoologists can play a game simulating the seasonal migration of shorebirds. Players pick one of the included game cards and follow its directions, which...
Curated OER
Animal Adaptations
Students use items from boxes to dress up classmates as animals adapted to a given environment.
Curated OER
It's not just pretty - it's a survival method!
First graders write explanations for why certain animals can only live in certain environments. In this animal survival lesson plan, 1st graders take pictures of animals and place them into the right environment after a lesson on the...
Curated OER
Extreme Environments
Students examine extreme environments and the characteristics that make them. In this adaptation lesson students see how animals have adapted to these environments.
Curated OER
Butterfly Metamorphosis Booklet
Students study the four different stages of butterfly metamorphosis, In this butterfly life cycle lesson, students construct a metamorphosis booklet by recording and illustrating the butterfly life cycles in the booklet. Vocabulary and...
Curated OER
Animal Characteristics
Learners investigate the characteristics of animals by creating a chart. In this animal life lesson, students create a KWL chart listing all the different animals a class can name. Learners take a field trip to a science facility to get...
Curated OER
Monitor Marine Migrants
Students, in groups, track the seasonal journey of a species, such as a shorebird, sea turtle, or marine mammal, using various sources of migration data