Lesson Plan
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A STEP IN SPECIATION

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Students place different subspecies of a CA salamander are placed on grid map of CA according to where samples were collected. Then discuss patterns of their distribution, their likely evolutionary relationships, and probable sequence of...
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Sports Participation

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students research statistics about sports participation in references such as the Statistical Abstract of the United States. They make and analyze a list of the 10 sports that the highest number of Americans participated in on an amateur...
Lesson Plan
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Cooperative Classroom Text Features Activities

For Teachers 5th
Fifth graders examine text features and create a PowerPoint presentation. In this text features lesson, 5th graders go over Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures and text features before they choose one to include in a book and...
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America's Favorite Landmarks

For Teachers 10th - 12th
Students research using Google Earth a variety of websites to explore America's most prominent and famous buildings. They then compare and contrast architectural styles and write a position paper defending or arguing against their chosen...
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Mystery Boxes: Uncertainty and Collaboration

For Teachers 8th - 11th
Students manipulate boxes with unknown internal structure and contents to become familiar with the concept of uncertainty in science.
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Avoiding Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Burning Fossil Fuels

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers calculate stoichiometrically the amount of carbon dioxide that would be emitted from burning a mole of varios alkanes that comprise fossile fuels. If the energy released from burning a mole of these alkanes is known, then...
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Sports Helmets and Impact Testing of Polymers

For Teachers 5th - 9th
Students examine the importance of good quality safety gear. In this investigative lesson, students will tests various polymers, collect data, and analyze the data to determine which polymer is best for safety helmets. They will design a...
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Salon Simulation

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students examine the role of the 'Salon'. In this historic communications instructional activity, students role play and use discussion to enhance their understanding of the role the Salon played in 18th century Europe. Students will...
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THE GOOD AND THE BADDE: ARE STEREOTYPES A PERFECT FIT?

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers examine stereotypes of women from The Good and the Badde in juxtaposition with the female characters in The Taming of the Shrew. Through this exercise, students locate evidence from the text of the play to support or...
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Get Your Motor Runnin'

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students examine the technology of hybrid vehicles and the claims made on their behalf. Upon further exploration, they research and decide which cars, hybrid or non-hybrid, might perform best under various circumstances.
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Getting Thirsty?

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Learners explore the concept of drought and its significance as a natural hazard. In this drought lesson plan, students complete 13 questions on an "Introduction to Drought as an Ecosystem Stressor" worksheet and discuss the responses as...
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Ethics on the Job

For Teachers 7th - 10th
Students examine ethics in the workplace. In this Career and leadership lesson, students will pair up to discuss various issues surrounding workplace ethics. This lesson includes 3 different activities, and assessment and necessary...
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The Chips Are Down: A Natural Selection Simulation

For Teachers 8th - 10th
Students, in teams, use different colored paper chips to represent prey and a piece of fabric as the environment.
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Baked Polymer Clay 3D People Portraits

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Students discuss methods of building forms with clay (ball and variations, snake, flat sheets). They draw a stick figure of what their sculpture may look like, including correct figure proportion.
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Europe on the Internet

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students conduct Internet research on a selected city or country in Europe. They launch a search engine, explore various websites, write down basic facts about their country on a worksheet, and create a travel brochure.
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Becoming Whales: Experiencing Discoveries of

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students experience, through a "dig," the historical discovery of fossils which increasingly link whales to earlier land-dwelling mammals. They encounter the intermediate forms which show changes that lead to the modern whale.
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VARVES: Dating Sedimentary Strata: Geology, Paleontological Patterns

For Teachers 6th - 9th
Young scholars count the number of varves (annual layers of sediment) in shale billets, taken from the Green River Formation in Wyoming. The count is then extended to reflect the entire 260 meters of sediments where the billets originated.
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Time Machine: Evolution, Geology

For Teachers 8th - 11th
Students are taken on a simulated "voyage" backward in time, to the beginning of our planet. They "witness" that beginning, the origin of life, and a number of key events from then to the present.
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OF SUNSETS, SOULS AND SENSES: Science, Scientific Methods, Natural and Supernatural

For Teachers 6th - 9th
Students explore the realm and limits of science. Engages students to give examples of topics that can be studied by science, and those that cannot. This also takes a examine descriptive terms, which reflect the true nature of modern...
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The Great Fossil Find - Reconstructing the Pieces

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students go on an imaginary fossil hunt. They follow a script read by the teacher, students "find" (remove from envelope) paper "fossils" of some unknown creature. They attempt to reconstruct fossil pieces into an animal.
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The Checks Lab

For Teachers 2nd - 4th
Learners, in teams, have an envelope containing a series of bank checks. A few are removed at a time, and the team attempts to construct a plausible scenario which involves those checks.
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Natural Selection.... a Cumulative Process... it's in the cards!

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Learners working in pairs attempt to produce a full sequence of 13 cards of one suit (ace - to king). This must be done by shuffling the suit of cards for each round, then checking the cards.
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Teen Immigrants: Five American Stories

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Students watch the PBS program "In the Mix" about teen immigrants. They discover the number of immigrants in America and their problems moving to this country. They answer questions as the film plays.
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A Call to Jihad

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students view a video clip about Islam in the Middle East. They discuss quotes by Hussein calling for a jihad and what jihad means. They examine Hussein's leadership qualities as well.