NOAA
Plate Tectonics I
Young geologists get a glimpse beneath the earth's surface in this plate tectonics investigation. After first learning about the different layers of the earth and the constant movement of its plates, young...
NASA
Lunar Colonization
A five-lesson unit challenges teams to design a complex to allow people to colonize the Moon. The teams first work in order to understand the challenge before becoming experts. Expert teams learn about different aspects needed to survive...
Education Development Center
Making Sense of Unusual Results
Collaboration is the key for this equation-solving lesson. Learners solve a multi-step linear equation that requires using the distributive property. Within collaborative groups, scholars discuss multiple methods and troubleshoot mistakes.
Cornell University
Catapult
Studying levers couldn't be more exciting! Learners build their own catapults and test the results as they make adjustments to the fulcrum. They compete against other groups to create the most accurate apparatus.
Portland Public Schools
Teaching Tone to Teenagers
Tone is a tough topic to teach to teenagers. But never, fear, help is here in the form of a unit plan that takes advantage of their interest in music to set the stage for a series of activities that lead them to understand how setting,...
NASA
The Search for Critical Questions
A puzzle isn't about the individual pieces, but how they work together. Scholars assemble a puzzle and discover missing pieces. They write a description of what they expect these pieces to look like, including as many details as...
Anti-Defamation League
The Gender Wage Gap
"Equal pay for equal work!" may sound logical but it is not the reality. High schoolers begin a study of the gender wage gap with an activity that asks them to position themselves along a line that indicates whether they strongly agree...
Memorial Art Gallery
Art Alive! - Towing a Boat, Honfleur
Color, light and shadow, the placement and size of objects. These are some of the tools artists used to tell their stories. Model for learners how to read a painting by closely examining these features. The richly detailed packet...
Oxfam
Sweatshops - Exploitation Is Never in Fashion
Here's a resource that brings home the idea that we are all part of a global community, that our actions have far reaching consequences. Class members examine the labels in their clothes, create a list of the manufacturers, the countries...
National Security Agency
Are You Game? A Lesson Connecting Fractions and Probability
Exactly how fair are the board games children grow up playing? Young mathematicians investigate this questions as they work their way through this five-lesson series on basic probability.
National Park Service
Hibernation-Migration-Fascination
What's the difference between hibernation and a good nap? Find out with an engaging life science activity that compares the hibernation habits of grizzly bears and marmots. After learners read an informational passage about each mammal,...
NASA
Rover Races
Operating a vehicle remotely can be difficult, especially when the vehicle is on another planet. Young engineers get a feel for some of the real-world challenges as they work to program their rovers (blindfolded group members)...
K5 Learning
A Restaurant
What can you eat at a restaurant? And how will you get it from your table? Learn about restaurant-specific words with a reading comprehension lesson about the people who work in restaurants, as well as the types of foods that various...
Mathematics Assessment Project
Middle School Mathematics Test 3
Real-life mathematics is not as simple as repeating a set of steps; pupils must mentally go through a process to come to their conclusions. Teach learners to read, analyze, and create a plan for solving a problem situation. The...
CK-12 Foundation
Electric Ice Sheet
Tommy is trapped on an ice bridge and needs you to balance the charges so he doesn't fall into the icy water! Scholars apply Coulomb's Law, which relates to both the strength and the distance between charges. They work with these two...
Royal Society of Chemistry
Combinatorial Chemistry—Chemistry Now
Finding new drugs has been likened to finding a needle in a haystack. How do pharmaceutical companies do it? One of a small series of four informative leaflets examines combinatorial chemistry, the method at the forefront of new drug...
Curated OER
About Life: The Photographs of Dorothea Lange Going to the Promised Land
To better understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression, pupils analyze two primary resources: photographs by Dorothea Lange and a U.S. Map that shows the Dust Bowl. They compare and contrast Lange's images to Steinbeck's...
Curated OER
Are You Listening?
To underscore the importance of practicing good listening skills class members engage in a series of activities that model poor listening skills. In pairs and then as a whole group, class members enact different, more positive techniques...
August House
Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail
Learn about the animals of Australia with a language arts lesson about an Australian folktale called, Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail. After reading the story as a class, kids discuss events and characters from the book, retell the...
State University of New York
Going Back in Time Using “George Washington’s Socks”
After reading Elvira Woodruff's George Washington's Socks, young readers and writers embark upon writing their own historically based story, with a focus on developing ideas and details throughout the piece. In small groups, class...
Speak Truth to Power
Elie Wiesel: Speaking Truth to Genocide to Power
Invite your learners to discover the efforts of Night author Elie Wiesel to promote awareness of genocide in the world. After watching and reading an interview of Elie Wiesel, high schoolers work to create a living Holocaust...
Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment
Managing Change
Adolescence and teenage years are very difficult in terms of emotions, primarily due to the amount of change going on in growing teens' lives. Guide middle schoolers through disruptive changes and transitions with a set of activities...
Scholastic
Lesson Two: The Earth, Introductory Activities
Determine what young pupils already know about earth science with a brainstorming activity. After class members work together to complete a KWL chart about the Earth, they craft an acrostic poem to demonstrate their understanding.
Virginia Department of Education
Permutations and Combinations
Counting is not all it adds up to be — sometimes it involves multiplying. The lesson introduces permutations and combinations as ways of counting, depending upon whether order is important. Pupils learn about factorials and the formulas...