How is sea coral like a thermometer? Part three of a six-part series from NOAA describes how oceanographers can use coral growth to estimate water temperature over time. Life science pupils manipulate data to determine the age of corals...

Step right up! An engaging research-centered lesson, the third in a series of six, has young archaeologists study the amazing animals of the Cambrian explosion. Working in groups, they profile a breathtaking and odd creature and learn...

The climate at the equator is hotter than the climate at the poles, but why? The lesson goes in depth, explaining how the angles of illumination relate to the heating rate at different latitudes and seasons. Scholars use a strong lamp,...

Take a "conservative" approach to planning your next unit on mass and matter! What better way to answer "But where did the gas go?" than with a lab designed to promote good report writing, research skills, and detailed observation....

It's a race to the finish! Which ice cube will melt the fastest? Scholars discover the effect thermal energy has on melting ice. They experiment with melting ice cubes on different materials and learn that even at a consistent...

You will need to gather a number of tokens, bags, and other various game components in order to incorporate this activity into your curriculum. Different tokens represent carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Printable 8.5"x11"...

Oceans absorb half of the carbon dioxide and 80 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Scholars learn how and why the oceans store heat more effectively than land and how they help mitigate global warming. Pupils...

Let's get moving! The second installment of a 2-part series of six adventures helps learners take part in individual explorations by sea and by land. After navigating the waters in an informative WebQuest, groups create and hide their...

One step at a time! A seemingly linear relationship becomes an entirely new type of function. Young scholars build their understanding of step functions by completing a three-stage activity that incorporates multiple representations of...

Study the ways that humans have impacted the environment, particularly the spread of plastic waste. After watching a short film about the Laysan albatross population, learners complete a worksheet and research other ways that plastic...

Scholars investigate how the tempo of music affects heartbeats. Groups  develop hypotheses about music and its connection to heartbeats before carrying out an experiment. They analyze and present data from their investigations.

Temperature rises and land disappears! Through a lab exploration, learners understand the effect of temperature increase on water similar to the effect of global warming on our oceans. As they heat the water in a flask, they measure the...

Adjust the melting time of ice without varying the temperature! Learners experiment with different materials to decide how the materials affect the rate an ice cube melts. They then connect their findings to the conductivity of each...

Weather versus climate: weather relates to short time periods while climate averages the weather of a period of many years. Scholars learn about average temperature and precipitation in various climate zones and then apply statistics...

Why does Earth experience summer, fall, winter, and spring? Using an informative demonstration, learners see how the angle of the sun on Earth and the rotation of Earth determine the seasons. Scholars work in pairs to learn that the...

Scientists know the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years. Scholars learn about the amount of thermic radiation absorbed by air and what happens to the rest of the...

Almost 600,000 Americans are arrested each year for marijuana possession. Pupils decide if marijuana should be legalized for recreational use after reading state-by-state laws and the top pro and con arguments. The resource also includes...

When your class members have completed the novel Esperanza Rising, they will be ready to write an expository essay on how Esperanza responds to events and what this says about her character. Set your pupils up for success by...

Can you graph your story? Keep your classes interested by challenging them to graph a scenario and interpret the meaning of an intersection. Be sure they paty attention to the detail of a graph, including intercepts, slope,...

Help pupils to determine whether using square roots is the method of choice when solving quadratic equations by presenting a lesson that begins with a dropped object example and asks for a solution. This introduction to solving by...

There has to be a better way than counting. Pupils find the distance on a number line between rational numbers by counting the number of intervals. Through a discussion, the class sees the connection between absolute value and the...

Calculate the areas of scale drawings until a more efficient method emerges. Pupils find the relationship between the scale factor of a scale drawing and the scale of the areas. They determine the scale of the areas is the square of the...

Move all rational functions—well, maybe. Learners investigate the graphs of the reciprocals of power functions to determine a pattern between the graph and the power. Pupils graph rational functions where transformations are clearly...

What is a signal word? Recognizing these words is an important step in both reading and writing formal text. Review a list of signal words (provided and organized into specific categories), and then have your class play a game to...