John Hopkins University
Diets and Influence on Food Choice
From start to finish, this is a truly excellent lesson plan addressing the epidemic of diet-related disease in the United States. Learners begin with a reading excerpt of detailed information on trends in the American diet and the...
Curated OER
Let's Get Connected!
A great lesson plan introduces your youngsters to electricity. They use internet links, streaming video, and engage in hands-on activities to understand what electricity is and how it works. They build a circuit board, and construct a...
Curated OER
A Whole Lotta Changin' Goin' On
Here's a fabulous lesson plan on the life cycle of a butterfly. Youngsters are able to identify and understand the four stages of life. They construct models of a caterpillar and write a sequence story about the life of a butterfly. This...
Curated OER
Westward Ho!
For any teacher of American History, The Lewis and Clark Expedition is a watershed event that should be shared with your learners. This is a very good lesson on the Expedition, and the events that led up to it; including The Lousisiana...
Georgia Department of Education
Living Things/ Nonliving Things
How can you tell if something is living or nonliving? Introduce a set of criteria which can be used to determine which things are alive and which are not. The class discusses the basic needs of all living organisms, checks out an...
Virginia Department of Education
A Crystal Lab
Young chemists grow ionic crystals, metallic crystals, and supersaturated crystals in three different lab experiments. Observing these under a microscope allows pupils to compare the various structures.
Curated OER
Project Geode
Young geologists attempt to predict the appearnace of a geode's internal structure based on how it looks from the outside, its mass, and its physical characteristics. In this geologly lesson, learners use scientific equipment to collect...
Incredible Art
Historical Narrative Using Silhouettes
Connect art and history with a series of activities inspired by the work of contemporary artist, Kara Walker. After watching an Art 21 video about Walker and examining the images in a PowerPoint presentation, class members use...
Curated OER
Water Supply
Fourth graders complete three activities. In this water supply lesson, 4th graders learn that water can exist in different forms and watch a demonstration of each form. Students explore the water cycle and make a water cycle using the...
Curated OER
The Right Chemistry
Students see that chemistry is the study of matter, how matter reacts and combines to create new chemicals, the changes that take place in matter and what makes up matter. This lesson provides many good ideas across the curriculum to...
Curated OER
Water and Ice
Students conduct an experiment. In this forms of water instructional activity, students observe ice to see what changes take place and then write in their journal about what they observed.
Curated OER
Wetlands Are Wonderlands!
Students explore the wetlands. They participate in numerous activities to explore food chains, food webs, and energy in the ecosystem. Students read stories, sing songs, visit specified websites, and participate in games to discover...
Curated OER
Hot and Cold Colors
Students engage in an activity that will allow them to observe that hotter conditions can speed up changes in materials. They will predict whether food coloring disperses more quickly in hot, cold, or room temperature water, and then...
Curated OER
Oil Spill
Fourth graders watch a video about the types of products made from oil or oil used as energy to produce the product. In groups, they identify the positive and negative aspects of oil and participate in various activities. They use the...
Curated OER
Density
Learners predict when an object will float or sink based on comparison of density of the object to the density of the substance in which it is placed. The access a website and sketch the object in the first column of their table and then...
NASA
Analyzing Tiny Samples Using a Search for the Beginning Mass Spectrometry
Teach the basics of mass spectrometry with a hands-on lesson. The fourth in a series of six lessons explores how mass spectrometry measures the ionic composition of an element. Learners then compare and contrast relative abundance and...
Curated OER
Seasons
First graders observe and record changes in weather from day to day and over seasons, while comparing all four seasons by creating a "Guess the Season" book.
Curated OER
Rock-A-Bye Pendulum
Third graders use the scientific process to explore the effects of force on an object in motion. They demonstrate that the greater the force applied to an object, the greater the change in speed or direction of the object. They...
NASA
Mystery Planet
What can one learn about a planet based on a small surface sample? Learners will explore artifacts from a mystery planet and see what they can determine about the planet based on the evidence in front of them.
NASA
The Invisible Sun: How Hot Is It?
It's getting hot in here! The first in a series of six lessons has learners model nuclear fusion with a simple lab investigation. Groups collect data and analyze results, comparing their models to the actual process along the way.
Curated OER
The Water We Drink
Third graders relate that the quality of their drinking water is subject to the condition of the environment and water found in streams and creeks in their community. They track the travel of a wad of paper from a student's desk to a...
Wild BC
The Greenhouse Effect: Warming the Earth Experiment
First in a two-part lesson on the greenhouse effect, this lesson involves a classroom demonstration of the phenomenon, and a lab group experiment with color and absorption. Although there are easier ways to demonstrate the greenhouse...
Beyond Benign
Puzzler
Are some packaging materials superior to others? Using sustainability as a guide, scholars analyze different packing materials to describe their life cycles. They create puzzles to communicate their findings.
Curated OER
Promote Nonviolence
Take a look at the topic of violence as seen in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Discuss together the values that Atticus holds and brainstorm ways to combat violence in a similar manner to what he portrays in the novel. Get your...