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Constellation Prizes
Students study meteors, meteorites, and comets by reading and discussing a related New York Times article about the Leonid meteor showers and the methods that scientists are using to study from these meteors. They create a comet in the...
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Weather
Students gain an understanding of air pressure. In this science lesson plan, students define weather, understand pressure, specifically air pressure, demonstrate the pushing power and other properties of air, and learn how a barometer is...
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Hurricane Frequency and Intensity
High schoolers examine hurricanes. In this web-based meteorology lesson, students study the relationship between ocean temperature and hurricane intensity. They differentiate between intensity and frequency of hurricanes.
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Climate And the Greenhouse Effect
Students demonstrate the greenhouse effect. They recognize that relatively small changes to our environment can stimulate significant climate changes. They determine that the "scientific method" is a process of testing hypotheses and...
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How Does the Loss of Ozone Affect Our Climate
Students explore the greenhouse effect and what it does to the environment. They discuss if and how human behavior contributes to global warming and test natural materials for carbon content.
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Integrating Environmental Science-Ozone Depletion
For this ozone worksheet, students read about the ozone layer, its make-up and its depletion. They answer three critical thinking questions about ozone and the ozone layer.
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The Fact of Global Warming
Students investigate the harmful impact of global warming by reading news articles. In this environmental care lesson, students analyze an article about the Kyoto Protocol and its goal of saving our environment. Students...
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Modeling Hot and Cold Planets
Students, in teams, design and construct models of two planets, one hot and the other cold, using a variety of materials. They attempt to create the models out of substances that will actually show the greatest temperature differences...
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Testing and Refining Aircraft Design
Students design and make a flying device. They work in small groups to brainstorm ideas for the design of their device. They choose an idea or combination of ideas to use for their design and create a sketch of their design. The students...
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How Much Oxygen Is In The Air?
In this science worksheet, students take a close look at the composition of air while focusing on the content of oxygen. They use clay to model the amounts.
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Clouds
Students recognize the three main types of clouds. In this clouds lesson, students create a cloud mobile to understand clouds.
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Scientist Tracking Network
Students correlate surface radiation with mean surface temperature of several geographic regions. They observe how these parameters change with latitude and construct an understanding of the relationship of solar radiation to seasonal...
NASA
Auroras
In this auroras worksheet, students define 11 terms related to space phenomena such as auroras, coronal mass ejections and auroral ovals. Students use a given website to help them define the terms and they write a 500 word essay about...
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Probing Below the Surface of Mars
Students simulate the search for water in Mars using simple apparatus. In this space science instructional activity, students explain how soil temperature affects the cooling of probes. They graph the data collected from the simulation.
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THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
Students describe the movement of water within the water cycle and identify the states of water as it moves through the water cycle.
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Life Underground
First graders build a terrarium in order to observe animal and plant life dynamics. In this biology lesson, 1st graders compare how organisms survive in different environments. They write their observations and analysis in their journal.
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Investigating the Hydrosphere
No matter the scientific discipline, your students can benefit from a study of water.
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Meteor Showers
Students use the Internet to discover the wonderful world of comets and meteor showers. They discover how to spot one and predict them using a calendar. They also examine the makeup of meteoroids and meteorites.
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Soil Treasure Hunt
Young scholars explore the concept of soil and decomposition. In this soil and decomposition lesson, students investigate bags of soil. Young scholars then learn how animals and other organisms help in the decomposition process.
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Minerals
Students apply rules to compare and rank the hardness and softness of minerals. They perform a scratch test on four unknown mineral samples, read a bar graph that illustrates the comparative hardness and softness of four named minerals,...
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Redefining an Earthquake
Ninth graders build an "Earthquake Machine" (a manipulative model of a fault line) and use it to explore stick-slip behavior of some faults and to develop a more accurate definition of an earthquake and its causes.
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Water Cycle
Students explore the water cycle. In this water cycle lesson, students examine water as a resource as they create a water cycle poster and create a water cycle model. Water cycle game instructions are included as well.
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Clouds
Students explore clouds. In this weather lesson plan, students identify the steps in the water cycle, define condensation and evaporation, and relate this information to cloud formation. Students perform a cloud experiment,...
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Thermal Expansion
Learners examine how thermal expansion of water can affect sea level. They conduct an experiment that demonstrates what happens to water levels when exposed to heat, record the results on a data sheet, and discuss the results.