Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Spreadsheet Tutorial 3: Column Graphs, Error Bars, and Standard Error of the Mean

For Students 9th - 12th
There's absolutely no error in using the tutorial! Learners use spreadsheets to create column or bar graphs with error bars. They also learn how to calculate the standard error of the mean in the tutorial. This is the third installment...
Activity
2
2
National Park Service

News Bearly Fit to Print

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
There are an average of three human fatalities by bears in North America every year, which is low when you compare it to the 26 killed by dogs and the 90 killed by lightning annually. The lesson encourages researching human-bear...
Activity
2
2
National Park Service

The Secret of Life

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Dead trees provide nutrients for the soil, food for animals, protection and a home for organisms, a seed-bed for new trees, and a place for nitrogen-fixing bacteria to live. In the activity, pupils collect decaying logs, expose them to a...
Activity
Teach Engineering

Kidney Stone Crystallization

For Students 9th - 12th
No one likes kidney stones, but they are very interesting to learn about. The last installment of a three-part unit has learners experiment with different chemicals to see which one inhibits the growth of calcium oxalate crystals (which...
Activity
Worchester Polytechnic Institute

Interactive Laboratory Activities for Secondary Education

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Do you think the lab smells like rotten eggs? Sorry to hear about your sulfering. A set of five experiments covers many different topics including seasons, gravity, food, precipitation, and photosynthesis. Though not presented as a...
Activity
2
2
Teach Engineering

Designing a Robotic Surgical Device

For Teachers 10th - 12th
The engineering design process meets laparoscopic surgical robots with an activity that is the last part in a series of 10 and brings all the lessons of the unit together. Teams design and build a remotely controlled laparoscopic device....
Activity
1
1
Teach Engineering

Linking Sources and Pollutants

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Class members use an air quality monitor to measure the amount of gas-phase pollutants emitted by different sources. Groups choose three different sources and make predictions about what the monitors will detect. Teams then expose...
Activity
1
1
Teach Engineering

Computer Simulation of the Sonoran Desert Community

For Students 9th - 12th
See how changes in initial populations and parameters affect a biological community. Individuals use a special software program to simulate a desert community with five species. They adjust initial populations to see how the community...
Activity
Curated OER

Extending the Definitions of Exponents, Variation 2

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Introduce the concept of exponential functions with an activity that extends the definition of exponents to include rational values. Start with a doubling function at integer values of time, then expand table to include frational time...
Activity
Explore Biology

Health Pamphlet Project

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Biology or health nuts select a disease to research and produce a pamphlet that can be used to inform the public. The tri-fold product is worth 100 points according to the included grading page.
Activity
2
2
National Park Service

It Was a Very Good Year

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park includes whitebark pines that are over 1,200 years old, meaning they have been there since before medieval times. The second lesson of five details how to read tree rings for climate change and...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Field Guide to Schoolyard Insects and Their Relatives

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Your entire class works together to create an illustrated insect field guide. The intent is that they venture outside of the classroom, find a critter, and then research it using reference materials, insect books, and the Internet for...
Activity
Teach Engineering

Edible Algae Models

For Teachers 5th - 6th
Sometimes it's okay to eat your science experiment. A hands-on activity has pupils create models for algae to learn about its cellular structure. The best part of the experiment? The resulting juice-filled gels are edible—yum!
Activity
Serendip

Genetics Vocabulary Review Game

For Students 9th - 12th
Taboo, anyone?! A vocabulary review lesson asks learners to give their partners clues to help them guess the target word. The catch? There are words that are taboo. If they use the prohibited words, they don't get credit if partners...
Activity
New South Wales Department of Education

Is it Alive?

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Interestingly enough, movement is not a characteristic of living things. The first activity in a series of 20 introduces learners to the concepts of living versus non-living things and then focuses on biologists and what they study....
Activity
2
2
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Ocean Acidification

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Human impacts on the environment can sometimes be difficult to measure, especially under water! An activity centered on ocean acidification gives science scholars the opportunity to examine the effects of carbon dioxide on marine life....
Activity
1
1
Ask a Biologist

It’s a Plankton Eat Plankton World

For Teachers 3rd - 7th Standards
For as small as they are, plankton sure play an enormous role in maintaining marine ecosystems. Dive into an investigation of these tiny organisms with a hands-on life science activity in which children cut out pictures of sea...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

How Many Cells Are in the Human Body?

For Teachers 9th - 11th Standards
Investigating the large numbers of science is the task in a simple but deep activity. Given a one-sentence problem set-up and some basic assumptions, the class sets off on an open-ended investigation that really gives some...
Activity
Serendip

Structure and Function of Cells, Organs and Organ Systems

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Cells of different organs have unique cell functions. Learn how cell functions vary depending on their roles in the body using an inquiry-based activity. Scholars analyze the cell structure to make comparisons to its functions, allowing...
Activity
2
2
National Park Service

Nutcracker Fantasy

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
The Clark's nutcracker bird hides seeds in 25,000 different sites every year to save for winter. Lesson demonstrates how difficult it would be to find these seeds months later when they need them for food. In the first of five lesson,...
Activity
2
2
National Park Service

A Peace Park

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Piece together American and Canadian culture by learning about peace parks! Scholars discuss differences between Waterton Lakes National Park and Glacier National Park as a group. The newly-informed pupils answers questions about this...
Activity
2
2
Teach Engineering

Preconditioning Balloons: Viscoelastic Biomedical Experiments

For Teachers 10th - 12th Standards
What does stretching a balloon have to do with equilibrium? Groups explore preconditioning by stretching a balloon to a point of equilibrium. They then measure the amount of force required to stretch the balloon to the same point several...
Activity
2
2
Teach Engineering

Creepy Silly Putty

For Teachers 10th - 12th Standards
It might be silly to determine the creep rate of putty but groups will enjoy making different formulations of silly putty and playing with them to understand how the different mixtures behave. The second part of the activity has groups...
Activity
Serendip

Carbohydrate Consumption, Athletic Performance and Health – Using Science Process Skills to Understand the Evidence

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Should athletes carb load before an event or consume carbohydrates during the competition? Scholars discuss how to set up a hypothesis and experiment to answer a question relating carbohydrates and athletic performance. Then, they read...