Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Natural Selection and Evolution of Rock Pocket Mouse Populations

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Can evolution repeat itself? Scholars analyze amino acid data in two separate populations of mice. They learn that evolution repeats itself, but natural selection prefers some mutations over others in different environments. Analysis...
Activity
Education Development Center

Word Problem with Rational Numbers—Balancing Bars of Soap

For Teachers 4th - 5th Standards
Here's a resource teachers won't want to wash their hands of. Given a task where a full bar of soap is on one side of a balance and 3/4 of a bar of soup and a 3/4-ounce weight is on the other side, young mathematicians must determine the...
Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Lactose Intolerance: Fact or Fiction

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Around the world, about 2/3 of adult humans are lactose intolerant. Scholars work in small groups to discuss a few statements about lactose intolerance. Then, they watch a video on the topic and readdress each statement. Whole-class...
Activity
Curated OER

The Old Man and the Sea: Questioning Strategies

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Readers learn to ask questions about text with an activity based on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As they read, class members craft questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy and then find the answers themselves.
Activity
101 Questions

Coin Carpet

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Here's a new meaning to the expression throwing away money...a carpet of coins! An intriguing lesson requires calculations to determine the coin that would be the cheapest option, but it's a little tricky. The cost of the coin...
Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Testing a Hypothesis

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
Are sickle cell disease and malaria related somehow? Scholars learn about both illnesses and the hypotheses that they are related. They discuss, view a video, and answer questions to demonstrate understanding. The resource includes an...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

Running Around a Track II

For Teachers 9th - 11th Standards
On your mark, get set, GO! The class sprints toward the conclusions in a race analysis activity. The staggered start of the 400-m foot race is taken apart in detail, and then learners step back and develop some overall race strategy...
Lesson Plan
Illustrative Mathematics

How Many Leaves on a Tree? (Version 2)

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
A second attack at figuring out the number of leaves on a tree, this activity makes both an excellent follow-up to version 1 and a stand-alone activity. Learners practice setting parameters and deciding acceptable estimate precision, and...
Activity
Novelinks

Wildwood Dancing: Questions using Bloom’s Taxonomy of Thinking Process

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Readers respond to a series of questions focused onJuliet Marillier's young adult novel Wildwood Dancing, and crafted to reflect the levels in Bloom's Taxonomy.
Activity
Curated OER

Homer's The Odyssey

For Teachers 8th - 12th
Whether or not you are new to using The Odyssey with your classes, this publisher-produced teaching guide deserves a place in your curriculum library. The packet includes background information, chapter by-chapter summaries, study...
Activity
Noyce Foundation

Once Upon a Time

For Students K - 12th Standards
Examine the relationship between time and geometry. A series of five lessons provides a grade-appropriate problem from elementary through high school. Each problem asks learners to compare the movement of the hands on a clock to an angle...
Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

The Molecular Evolution of Gene Birth and Death

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
More than 90 percent of humans' DNA doesn't code for anything! Scholars watch a presentation as they answer questions relating to gene mutations. They read details, watch videos, and view animations supporting the concepts. The questions...
Activity
American Chemical Society

The Energy Efficiency of Heating Water

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Can a small change in laboratory procedures save energy? Scholars test three different methods for heating water in a science lab. Then, they calculate the energy efficiency for each and compare them to determine which uses the least...
Activity
American Chemical Society

Energy and Entropy of a Stretched Rubber Band

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Stephen Perry invented and patented the modern rubber band in 1845. Young scientists put his discovery to work as they use rubber bands to observe entropy and enthalpy. They determine the change in free energy to figure out if it...
Activity
Noyce Foundation

Cubism

For Students K - 12th Standards
If cubism were a religion, would you follow it? Lower-level tasks focus primarily on counting the number cubes in a structure and relating the number to surface area. As learners progress to higher-level tasks, isometric drawings and...
Activity
Novelinks

Things Fall Apart: Bloom’s Taxonomy

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Promote critical thinking and literary analysis with a short activity. Readers of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart respond to a series of questions modeled on Bloom's Taxonomy.    
Activity
Novelinks

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle: Cognitive Enhancement

For Teachers 3rd - 7th Standards
Put your thinking cap on, it's quiz time! Here, scholars use their knowledge of the book, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi to create six questions to be used in their upcoming quiz. 
Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Building Ecological Pyramids

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Looking for a fresh take on traditional food/energy pyramids? Conduct an innovative activity where pupils build their own! The lesson uses research data from Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique for a real-life safari touch. Scholars...
Activity
5280 Math

Integer Interpreter

For Teachers 8th - 9th Standards
Can you add variables if you don't know their value? Using an empty number line, scholars first locate the position of the difference, sum, product, and quotient of two unknown integers. Later problems mix operations as well as add...
Activity
5280 Math

More or Less the Same

For Teachers 8th - 10th Standards
Tell the story of the math. Given a graph of a linear system, learners write a story that models the graph before crafting the corresponding functions. Graphs intersect at an estimated point, allowing for different variations in the...
Activity
Education Development Center

Writing Numerical Expressions—Hexagon Tables

For Students 5th - 7th Standards
Explore a basic pattern to practice writing expressions. In collaborative groups, learners examine a contextual pattern and write an expression to model it. The task encourages groups to describe the pattern in multiple ways.
Activity
Education Development Center

Creating Data Sets from Statistical Measures

For Students 6th - 7th Standards
Explore the measures of central tendency through a challenging task. Given values for the mean, median, mode, and range, collaborative groups create a set of data that would produce those values. They then critique other answers and...
Activity
Education Development Center

Creating a Polynomial Function to Fit a Table

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Discover relationships between linear and nonlinear functions. Initially, a set of data seems linear, but upon further exploration, pupils realize the data can model an infinite number of functions. Scholars use multiple representations...
Activity
Bulgarian Creative Writing Competition

Creative Writing Workshop

For Teachers K - 12th
Looking for suggestions on how to organize a creating writing workshop? For topic suggestions appropriate for various grade levels? Check out a resource packet, designed for English language arts instructors, that is packed with ideas...