Curated OER
Let the River Run
Students explore the environment by reading a story in class. In this water formation instructional activity, students define environmental terms such as rivers, streams, gulf, oceans and lakes. Students read the story A River Ran Wild...
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Take a Leap!
Eighth graders discuss the flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. They study artwork of various sculptors showing the concept of flight. They write a paragraph and design a papier-mache' sculpture that shows movement.
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Simple Harmonic Motion
Students explain the theory of simple harmonic motion (SHM) by performing hands-on, practical application experiments.
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Simple Harmonic Motion
Students study harmonic motion and its oscillation. For this simple harmonic motion lesson students demonstrate a series of regular oscillations and explain the theory behind the experiment.
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Care to Canoe?
Students experience to balance with another student and maneuver in a two person canoe on still water. They analyze important aspects of canoeing including putting in, portaging and weight distribution. Students discuss the...
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Erosion in Different Soils [Erosion Races]
Fourth graders review how erosion can happen by wind, water, and gravity which they studied in previous lesson plan. They attempt to discover if all soils erode at the same rate. In small groups, 4th graders experiment with three...
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What Makes a Kite Fly?
Ninth graders compare the nature of forces of gravity, lift, thrust, and drag. They select proper materials for making a kite and attach a proper tail. Students interpret and summarize the observations made during the flight of the kites.
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F = Ma, Inertia, And Action-reaction
Fourth graders investigate Newton's Second and Third Laws of Motion. They determine what makes objects harder or easier to push. While investigating they determine how applying force in order balance out gravity allows things to stay...
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What Goes Up Must Come Down!
Young scholars hypothesize about the nature of falling objects, design an experimental test to answer the question using everyday objects, analyze data to form conclusions, and infer that mass does not affect the speed of falling...
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Hurricanes
Students state and directly experience two laws of Physics (Law of Gravity, Law of Centrifugal Force) that affect weather. They explain the observations made when using the "hurricane machine" and relate them to other events and phenomenon.
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What's it Like Inside the Sun?
Students perform experiment in which they model convection as it occurs in our Sun. They also explain that convection acts where the effect of gravity and heat are present (low density fluids can rise and cool, and high density fluids...
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Out Of Sight Air; Weather
Fourth graders conduct an experiment to get them thinking about the invisibility of air, and to prove that air has weight.
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Newton's Laws of Motion
Students perform three activities that each demonstrate one of Newton's Laws of Motion. They use a ramp and toy car to demonstrate inertia, calculate acceleration due to gravity, then use a medicine ball and rolling chair to demonstrate...
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What Floats Your Boat?
Students discover the Archimedes principle through a buoyancy experiment. They measure the water displacement of a lump a clay which is denser than water then reshape the clay into a bowl which floats but displaces more water.
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Scientific Inquiry: Periodic Motion
Young scholars construct their own pendulum. In this physics lesson, students design an experiment to find the factors affecting its period. They formulate a conclusion based on experimental data.
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Glass Blowing How Do They Make Glass Into Different Shapes?
Students experiment with butter as a supercooled liquid in order to better explain how glass is made into different shapes.
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Let's Think About Water
Students explore the different forms that water can take and conduct simple experiments to demonstrate some of its properties in each state. They watch a short video that illustrates some of these concepts.
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Iron Filings
Students conduct an experiment in which a solution of copper(II) sulfate is added to iron filings. They write and balance the equation for the reaction that occurs and calculate the amount of iron that reacted and the percent yield of...
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Space Ship Pilot
Young scholars visualize the relation between acceleration and velocity in 2 dimensions. They are introduced to Newton's first law,and Newton's second law. Students work on an exploration activity where they condsider an example of a...
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Physical Properties of Ice
Students explore the different properties of ice. They make predictions and experment with ice. Students discover that ice melts faster under pressure. Students create a flipbook what what happened after each experiment. This lesson...
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An Eclipsing Binary System with a Precessing Accretion Disk
Students work together to complete an experiment over binary sources. They determine values for the orbital period of certain objects and interpret intensity changes. They also calculate a value for the period of precession of an...
Curated OER
Functions and Statistics: International Space Station: Up to Us
Students explore how the International Space Station was built and how it provides first-hand experiences with the space program. They view the NASA engineers discussing the major components of the International Space Station, their...
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TE Activity: Pulley'ing Your Own Weight
Students experiment with common objects such as spools, string and soap to determine how pulleys make it easier to move large objects. They look at the difference between fixed and movable pulleys. They examine the many uses engineers...
Teach Engineering
You Are There... First Flight
Glide into the study of flight. An engaging lesson has scholars research information on the Wright brothers. They develop props and produce a recreation of the first flight at Kitty Hawk. They then report on the event as if they were...