Rainforest Alliance
Trees and Carbon
You'll find everything but the kitchen sink here ... or just a carbon sink. In the activity, pairs or groups of middle school learners go outside and measure a tree's circumference and height to estimate its carbon storage potential and...
Virginia Department of Education
The Cycles of Nature
Encourage peer collaboration and assist with the creation of visual aids to identify carbon, water, and nitrogen cycles as your class learns more about nature. They discuss relative information, create a visual aid...
Curated OER
How Can Clear of Tress Destroy a Community?
Fifth graders brainstorm the relationship between trees and humans to determine how humans benefit from trees and how they benefit from us. They discuss oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange, soil stablization, animal habitat, shade, medicine...
Baylor College
Do Plants Need Light?
Turn your classroom into a greenhouse with a lesson on plant growth. First, investigate the different parts of seeds, identifying the seed coat, cotyledon, and embryo. Then plant the seeds and watch them grow! Measure the new plants...
Baylor College
What's Is Soil Made Of?
It's time to roll up those sleeves and get a little dirty in the second lesson of this series on the science of food. Investigate where plants and animals get the minerals they need to live in this two-part exploration of soil. First,...
Baylor College
Plant Parts You Eat
Plants provide a variety of delicious foods essential for human survival. In the fourth lesson of this series on food science, young scientists investigate common fruits, vegetables, and grains in order to determine which plant part is...
Baylor College
They're Everywhere: Bacteria
Totally gross out your class with the eighth lesson in this series on food science. Explore the microscopic world of bacteria by taking swabs of different classroom objects and growing colonies in petri dishes. An engaging activity that...
Baylor College
What's That Food?
Get things cooking with the first lesson in this series on the science of food. Working in small groups, young scientists make and record observations about different mystery foods. These descriptions are then shared with the class and...
Baylor College
Healthy Snacks
Assess your pupils' ability to identify healthy food choices in the final lesson of this series on food science. Given five different food labels, young nutritionists will rank them from most to least healthy, supporting their choices...
Baylor College
Using Food Labels
Help your class make sense of nutrition labels with the ninth lesson of this series. After explaining the different information provided on packaged food labels, perform an activity that demonstrates the amount of sugar in a single can...
Curated OER
Spider Safari
Today we are talking about one of the stealthiest, sneakiest, and most intriguing insects of all times, the spider. Learners will examine the predatory nature of these super bugs as they conduct a spider safari survey. Each child will...
Curated OER
Connect the Species
Fourth graders, in pairs, explore energy transfer and species interrelationships by viewing slides on a microscope. hey explore phytoplankton (producers) and zooplankton (consumers)
Curated OER
Genetic Disorders with Cultural Roots: International Insects
Students recognize that certain populations have specific genetic disorders that could benefit or harm them in their environment, work out punnett square problems and infer offspring probabilities from results, and provide advantages and...
Curated OER
Some Similarities Between the Spread of an Infectious Disease and Population Growth
Young scholars compare and contrast the spread of infectious diseases and population growth. In this biology lesson plan, students identify the exponential growth pattern of spreading diseases. They relate this to HIV infection and AIDS.
Curated OER
Find the Speed of a Protist
Students identify protists under a microscope, and using a stopwatch calculate the speed of a protist from a pond water sample. They use distance and time to identify the speed of a protist, and create a distance versus time graph to...
Curated OER
Rain Forest Animals
Students research rainforest animals from the book The Great Kapok Tree. They create an animal presentation using PowerPoint. Pupils demonstrate their comprehension of the interdependence of the animals, people, and plants in the...
Curated OER
Will There be Enough Water?
Students investigate water usage, water available, and water demand historically in the local area. They use projections of water usage, availability and demand up to the year 2050. Students use graphs to relate as well as compare and...
Curated OER
Water - Planning for the Future
Middle schoolers explore and examine the increases and/or decreases for water user groups: irrigation, municipal, manufacturing, steam electric power generation cooling, livestock, and mining. They utilize percentage changes during their...
Curated OER
Exploring Hawaiian Mountain Zones
Fourth graders watch a video that describes the climate and vegetation zones of Hawaii. They describe the different physical conditions that create vegetation zones from the sea to the mountains. In groups, they create an illustrated...
Curated OER
Dependence and Interdependence
Third graders explore the dependence and interdependence that plants and animals in every environment have on one another. They examine how plants and animals depend on each other for survival. Students complete a variety of experiments...
Curated OER
Land Use Unit
Pupils identify factors in human society and the natural environment aree interdependent. They analyze interdependencies demonstrated in various situations and occurances.
Wild BC
The Greenhouse Effect: The Role of CO2
Though this is meant to be second in a two-part lesson, the two are not dependent on each other. Pupils play the roles of visible light rays, light or dark surfaces, and carbon dioxide molecules. They interact and react according to...
National Science Teachers Association
Adopt-a-Dino
Earth historians research a specific dinosaur, write a paper about the Mesozoic era that it lived in, create an artistic rendition of the environment, and give a presentation in class about what they learned. Be aware that there are...
Curated OER
Bird Banners
Learners create banners for their classroom that contain the same information as field guides.