Remind your middle school scientists how fox ear size varies depending on the climate they live in; large ears allow heat loss while small ears keep heat in. Discuss how a cold-blooded animal might try to regulate body temperature. Then...

Here is a worksheet that is almost a lesson! In it, learners conduct an experiment in which they determine the size of objects when viewed through viewing tubes. This resource has all of the instructions and tables necessary to complete...

High schoolers evaluate a forest for timber harvest and discuss potential impacts of logging. In this sustainable forestry lesson, they work in groups in a forested plot to choose trees to cut based on species and stem diameter and then...

Kids observe, classify, and measure tree leaves with a scientific eye. They examine leaves, group them according their attributes, and use standard units of measurement as they compare their sizes. They access a web site to learn how...

Get out those scrabble tiles and a braille tape labeler because today we are playing a build-a-word game! Label several sets of scrabble tiles using the braille labeler, place them in a box, and have children take turns pulling letter...

Make music. Class members construct a simple record player using a paper cone and a pin. The resource provides a description of what is happening and why listeners can hear the sounds through the cone. 

How do satellites communicate? What types of satellites orbit Earth? Discover and mimic the way satellites communicate between two points in a hands-on activity that has pupils using mirrors, flashlights, and marbles.

Sometimes it's how you ask the question that counts. The sixth installment of nine from the Smarter Balanced Claim 1 Slideshow series presents a set of 13 questions to assess understanding of angle relationships as well as area and...

Design your dream classroom. The lesson plan contains an exercise to have teams create a scale drawing of their dream classroom. Pairs take the measurements of their classroom and furniture and create a scale factor for them. To finish...

Bring your young mathematicians into the fold. Scholars conduct an activity folding paper to see the relationship between the number of folds and the number of resulting layers in the 23rd installment of a 36-part module. The results of...

Equip young campers with important survival knowledge with a set of engaging lessons. Teammates work together to complete three outdoor activities, which include building a shelter, starting a campfire, and finding directions in the...

Apply, apply, apply! A measurement lesson applies a number of concepts to help learn a new construction. Scholars learn to divide a segment into n equal parts using a method that uses the Side Splitter Theorem and a method that...

Right angles, acute angles, obtuse angles, central angles, inscribed angles: how many types of angles are there? Learners first investigate definitions of inscribed angles, central angles, and intercepted arcs. The majority of the...

Are the means the same or not? Groups create samples from a bag of numbers and calculate the sample means. Using the sample means as an estimate for the population mean, scholars try to determine whether the difference is real or not.

After listening to the story, The Best Part of Me, learners will identify a positive physical feature of themselves, and create a descriptive poem about their favorite feature. Photographs are taken, and a nice final draft of the poem is...

It's all about lines when going around. Pupils graph the relationship between the length of a side of a square and its perimeter. Class members explain the origin in context of the side length and perimeter. They compare the graph to the...

Challenge scholars to tie knots like a sailor. With help from tutorials and plenty of practice, learners tie the perfect reef knot, clove hitch, bowline and more!

Here is a fun and clever instructional activity for teaching physics classes how to calculate wavelength if given the energy and frequency data. On a worksheet, they compute wavelengths using a table of information that you provide. On a...

Groups of students rotate through five classroom stations to estimate, measure, and record volume, length, weight, mass, and area using both customary and metric measure. They evaluate their data to determine how close their estimates...

Write with the senses! Try using art to inspire writers to consider all of the senses. Here, the class is divided in half. Each group looks at one of two images, imagines the senses that would be engaged, and records answers to five...

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the inspiration for this project-based learning activity. Kindergartners create a lifecycle chart for a butterfly with four sections: egg, caterpillar, pupa, and butterfly. It is a three-dimensional...

How do you put something as large as the universe in perspective? Use a series of scale experiments. Classmates collaborate around four experiments to examine the scale of the earth-moon system, our solar system, the Milky Way galaxy,...

Halfway through the module — the perfect time for an assessment. The 18th installment of a 36-part series is a mid-module assessment. Scholars provide evidence of understanding through various mathematical and contextual problems.

Fifth graders identify how a pond can change into a grassland. An ecosystems lesson where learners identify pioneer and climax species, and recognize that ecological succession can take up to 100 years or more. Some excellent activities...