All of the people in your class would agree that life would be different without the invention of the telephone! Study Alexander Graham Bell's most famous and influential invention through the primary source document of his...

You sunk my battleship via the Internet? Groups of three play a modified game of Battleship using the Internet Simulator. Team members determine how to address messages, so each player knows who the message is for, and refine their text...

Use the graphs of the trigonometric functions to set the stage to inverse functions. The lesson reviews the graphs of the basic trigonometric functions and their transformations. Pupils use their knowledge of graphing functions to model...

How are messages to the right recipient? Introduce the concept of routing Internet traffic by drawing a comparison to sending a letter. Groups use the Internet Simulator program to send messages to others using the same router...

What is the most efficient way to ensure everyone is connected? Individual pupils determine the least expensive route to pave roads in a fictional city. In doing so, they learn to find the minimal spanning tree for the situation. They...

Good versus bad data. Pairs rate online collections of data representations from good to bad and then suggest ways to improve the visualizations. The class then creates a list of best practices and common errors in data representations...

I can get more water to stay on a penny than you can! Collaborative pairs determine the volume of liquids that can be contained on the surface of copper pennies and plastic coins. The pairs analyze their results using graphs and go on to...

Take the old baking soda and vinegar volcano to the next level by using it to study repeated lava flows over time, examine geologic features on Earth and Mars, and speculate about some of the formations on Mars. 

Introduce your classes to sensors and actuators in robots — specifically to the Roomba. Pupils develop programs that make Roomba utilize its different sensors.

Did the image I drew match the image you saw? By simulating a satellite and a ground station, teams of two transmit data in the form of pixels in order to recreate an image. They use four different levels of brightness, creating slightly...

A good complement to any integers unit contains a three-day lesson plan about positive and negative integers, adding and subtracting integers, and how to find the additive inverse. Additionally, it provides all necessary...

Groups explore illumination with NASA's Lighting Environment Test Facility (LETF) as a context. Using the TI-Nspire app, groups determine the lux equation that models their simulation. They then use the lux equation to...

In this English worksheet, students read "New Computer Art Mirrors Viewer's Mood," and then respond to 47 fill in the blank, 7 short answer, 20 matching, and 8 true or false questions about the selection.

According to the Farmers' Almanac, the weather will be nice today. Class members examine how weather forecasting plays a part in their lives with a resource that provides information on the history of forecasting, from using cloud...

What would school be like if you couldn't teach lessons that require technology? Would it benefit the class? Would it hold them back? Have your learners read this article and answer the basic reading comprehension questions. Then have...

In this English worksheet, learners read "Computers to Match Man by 2009," and then respond to 47 fill in the blank, 7 short answer, 20 matching, and 8 true or false questions about the selection.

In this technology worksheet, students match six pictures of computer parts with the Spanish word that names each. Directions and words are all written in Spanish.

In 2006, New Horizons began its mission to fly to Pluto. As it continues its journey, scholars track its progress with the help of an informative website, all the while reinforcing measurement concepts with the construction of a scaled...

How much energy does it take to light a room? Class members calculate the total wattage it takes to light the classroom. Through calculations, responsible scientists determine the cost of energy for the year, then figure out...

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.

Building an accelerometer app for your Android device. Groups develop an app that uses the accelerometer on an Android device. The purpose of the activity is to reinforce the programming design. The post activity assessment challenges...

"Data is so boring, there's no way to find any patterns in them."  Or is there? Pairs investigate data sets using different data visualization tools to discover a trend that may exist in a data set. Once they find a trend or...

Back to the (binary) basics. The resource provides a simple overview of binary code and gives two different activities to introduce it to elementary and middle school learners. Classmates write and decode messages to each other in binary...

What does an MRI machine have to do with a slinky? This activity challenges learners to run a current through a slinky and use a magnetic field sensor to measure the magnetic field. Groups then change the length of the slinky to see...