Curated OER
Flowers and Their Friends
Students study the basic parts of flowering plants. They explore flower characteristics that attract various bird and insect pollinators. Afterward, they represent real or imaginary flowers and pollinators based on their knowledge of...
Curated OER
Module 2: "Keeping Teeth Bright and Healthy"
Students become aware why cleaning their teeth helps keep them strong and healthy. They study basic brushing techniques, what plaque is, how a cavity is formed, why having clean teeth is an important part of having a clean body and why...
Curated OER
Adaptations and Evolutions of Species
Examples of natural selection over time will make the concept of evolution more clear to your students. This presentation is short but summarizes the mechanisms of isolation and selection clearly. This presentation would be useful...
Curated OER
Food Chains
One of the topics elementary school kids love to study is the concept of a food chain. This presentation provides a basic overview of the food chain. It also has definitions for herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore. However, there is only...
Curated OER
Energy and Conservation
Touching upon energy sources and the causes of pollution, this PowerPoint could be expanded. For example, it describes the greehnouse effect and the problems associated with global warming, but does not indicate that the greenhouse...
Curated OER
The Chemicals of Living Cells
Designed to be a study guide or self assessment for high school biologists, the worksheet has good questions about cell chemistry, but would need to be reformatted if you want your kids to write their answers on the paper. There are also...
Space Awareness
Coma Cluster of Galaxies
Scientists classify everything from the smallest cells to the largest galaxies, but how do they decide on a classification system? Scholars use 40 pictures of galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to sort and try creating their...
Space Awareness
The Fibre Optic Cable Class
Many people know that fiber optics are used in delivering the Internet, but are surprised to learn they are also used in astronomy. Scholars explore light, reflection, and fiber optics through hands-on activities. They discuss...
Biology Junction
Cellular Structure
The human body contains more than 200 types of cells, and plants contain many other unique types of cells. While a huge variety of cells exist, they appear to have very similar structures. A detailed presentation describes the structure...
University of Colorado
Can Photosynthesis Occur at Saturn?
In the 19th activity of 22, learners determine if distance from a light source affects photosynthesis. Participants capture oxygen in straws and find that the amount of water the gas displaces is proportional to the rate of photosynthesis.
LABScI
Kinematics: The Gravity Lab
Falling objects can be brutal if you don't protect your noodle! Scholars explore the motion of falling objects through measuring short intervals to determine if the distance traveled varies with time. Building off of this, scholars...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Ebola: Disease Detectives
How did the Ebola virus first infect humans? Young virologists examine genetic sequences from the 2014 Sierra Leone outbreak to find similarities during a riveting activity. Following similar methods used by MIT and Harvard, partners...
Lerner Publishing
Living or Nonliving
It's alive! Or is it? Through a series of shared readings, whole class activities, and independent exercises children explore the difference between living and non-living things, creating a pair of printable books...
Center for Learning in Action
Introduction to the States of Matter
Liquids, gases, and solids are the states of matter in which scholars investigate in a lesson plan that offers in-depth information and engaging activities that look into the three states and the changes their properties make when mixed...
Center for Learning in Action
Density
Explore the concept of density within states of matter—gases, liquids, and solids—through a group experiment in which young scientists test objects' texture, color, weight, size, and ability to sink or float.
TryEngineering
Search Engines
Introduce search engines with an activity that models how search engines work and the different algorithms they employ. Working in groups, class members then build search queries to demonstrate the knowledge learned.
Curated OER
Applied Science - Science and Math (K) Lab
In this shape lesson, learners cut out tangram shapes and create different pictures with them. They look at 3-D shapes as well. There is a nice, hands-on component built into this lesson.
Center for Learning in Action
Gases
Explore the properties of gases through one activity and two investigations in which super scientists observe the changes gas makes when encountering different conditions.
Serendip
Soap Opera Genetics – Genetics to Resolve Family Arguments
Did she cheat on her husband? Did the hospital switch the babies? Should they have children? As much as this sounds like the plot for a soap opera, all of these questions fit into a single lesson on genetics. Scholars read about three...
Curated OER
Allele and Phenotype Frequencies in Rock Pocket Mouse Populations
In the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, some tiny creatures show just how quickly natural selection can turn a mutation into an advantageous adaptation. Watch a video about rock pocket mice, who show that one small change can make all...
BBSRC
Discovering DNA: The Recipe for Life
A pinch of adenine, a dash of thymine and ta-da, you have life! Well, it's not quite that simple, but through this series of activities and experiments young scientists learn about the structure of DNA and how it contains the recipe...
Science 4 Inquiry
Introducing the Types of Energy
Young scientists explore many different types of energy including light, heat, nuclear, sound, potential, and more. They match the types of energy and identify when energy transfers from one type to another.
Serendip
How Eyes Evolved – Analyzing the Evidence
Octopodes existed for hundreds of thousands of years before humans, yet our eyes share many similarities. Scholars analyze the evidence to determine if the evolution of eyes best fits a homology or analogy model. They discuss the issue...
Consortium for Ocean Science Exploration and Engagement (COSEE)
Fish Morphology
Life comes in all different shapes and sizes, and fish are no exception. Here, young scientists create fish prints as they learn how specific characteristics allow different species to survive in their particular habitats.