NOAA
A Laboratory Simulation of Ocean Surface Currents
Stimulate interest in ocean currents with a simulation. The first installment of a five-part middle school series teaches future oceanographers about the forces that interact to cause ocean currents. A simulation shows how wind and...
Nemours KidsHealth
Food Labels: Grades 3-5
Bring awareness to the ingredients scholars ingest daily with two lessons that look deeply into food labels. The first lesson explores the difference between processed and fresh foods while the second lesson focuses on sugar content.
Curated OER
What's My Point: Persuasive Writing
Why do readers need to know an author’s purpose? How do you figure out what that purpose is? Guide your pupils through a series of activities that show them how to identify various techniques and structures used in persuasive writing....
Curated OER
Call to Arms: A Service Project
Sick of selling candy and washing cars? How about hosting a Digital Day or a Learning Lunch? The suggestions here make fund raising fun and rewarding. Raise money to preserve important maps and other primary source documents.
Museum of Tolerance
The Role of Citizens in a Participatory Democracy
Groups research participatory democracies and compare the role and rights of citizens in ancient history with those in recent U.S. history. Guided by a series of questions, individuals compose a persuasive essay in which they discuss the...
August House
Billy Brown and the Belly Button Beastie
How would you feel if you lost your belly button? Read about Billy Brown in Billy Brown and the Belly Button Beastie by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk. Young learners retell the story, answer questions, focus on the letter B and...
Curated OER
Tangerine: Instructions for Guided Imagery
A guided imagery exercise draws class members into a particularly intense scene in Edward Bloor's Tangerine. After listening to a reading of an excerpt from the text, participants respond to a series of questions and then share their...
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
Where Are We Going?
Come take a ride on the space bus! Scholars go on an imaginary trip to pick up their peers from the inner and outer planets while reinforcing math skills. First, learners round decimals to identify each planets' distance from Earth....
Center for Civic Education
In the Shadows, Agents of Change
Most of your learners have probably heard of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Cesar Chavez, but could they also recognize the names of Betty Friedan or Dolores Huerta? Give your learners the opportunity to discover the many accomplishments of...
Project Maths
Complex Number Operations
What do animated videos have to do with mathematics? Using operations of complex numbers and their representations on the complex plane, high schoolers observe how mathematics could be used to move animations. The instructional...
Curated OER
Marshmallow Fun Day - math
Early learners rotate to different classroom centers and participate in six activities based on using marshmallows to review concepts learned. They make: marshmallow sculptures (geometric shapes), the shape of mittens using colored...
Council for Economic Education
Understanding a Balance Sheet
Read any financial website or book, and it is bound to discuss the words asset and liability. But what do these words actually mean to the class? The resource effectively explains by using multiple formats and techniques, including...
Novelinks
Touching Spirit Bear: The Literary Mandala
Even someone with a dark side can make a good decision—and vice versa. Readers explore Cole's traits and decisions in Ben Mikaelson's Touching Spirit Bear and analyze his sunside and...
Polar Trec
Is There Salt in a Glacier?
What can conductivity tell us about a glacier? Groups analyze glacial melt to determine salt content through an analysis of the pH and conductivity measurements of two samples. Groups then determine the source of the salts.
Roald Dahl
Matilda - The Weekly Test
Readers take the main characters in Matilda and individually describe them through a mnemonic. To get there, group members create an acrostic poem describing the character they were given, and choose one of the words from the...
Biz Kids
Understanding Business Ethics
After screening an episode by BizKids, scholars show what they know about business vocabulary, then take part in grand conversations about role models and ethical dilemmas.
Illustrative Mathematics
Why Does SSS Work?
While it may seem incredibly obvious to the geometry student that congruent sides make congruent triangles, the proving of this by definition actually takes a bit of work. This exercise steps the class through this kind of proof by...
Statistics Education Web
Saga of Survival (Using Data about Donner Party to Illustrate Descriptive Statistics)
What did gender have to do with the survival rates of the Donner Party? Using comparative box plots, classes compare the ages of the survivors and nonsurvivors. Using the same method, individuals make conclusions about the...
Curated OER
"Jack and Jill" Microsoft Word Picture ID Unit
Using Microsoft Word and the blank "Jack and Jill" templates provided, class members find picture files of themselves and create a written photo ID document to be printed and lamented for the classroom. The lesson is divided into 4...
Curated OER
Sun and Shadows
Why do shadows look different in the summer than in the winter? What causes day and night? How can a sundial be used to tell time? Answer these questions and more through two engaging lessons about light and shadows. Fourth and fifth...
Novelinks
The Little Prince: Response to Art Exercise
Depending on your perspective, solitude can be lovely or very, very lonely. Kids take a look at the simple landscape illustrated in Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince, and write a short journal entry about their...
Center for Learning in Action
Properties of Balls
Enhance your states of matter lessons with a hands-on science investigation that compares six different balls' color, texture, size, weight, ability to bounce, and buoyancy.
Curated OER
Frisbee Baseball
Students keep track of the number of tosses it takes them to reach each base, and encourage team members and recognize their successes. To make this activity fit the level of older classes, measure distances and figure averages as you play!
Caucus 101
Linkage Institutions: Interest Groups: Option A
How are elections really run and won? Learn about special interest groups, super PACs, and lobbyists with an engaging lesson about the caucus process. Young voters research specific interest groups and analyze their part in previous and...