Curated OER
How Much Gift Wrap Do I Need?
Young scholars estimate the area of boxes using centimeter cubes. They find the actual area and compare it to the estimates.
Curated OER
Crash Test Smarties
Students share hypotheses about the variables needed to produce a collision between two moving objects. They simulate the impact of a moving object on an object that creates a spray of debris, and simulate a NASA Deep Impact study.
Curated OER
Public Land
Students examine the needs of their community for public space and determine the solutions to math problems related to planning landscape designs. They read and discuss an article from the New York Times, create their own designs for a...
Curated OER
Possessive Apostrophes
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark that is often incorrectly-used. This short, but effective, presentation addresses that fact. One way to use them is when showing possession in writing. Learners are coached on when to use possessive...
Curated OER
Too Free, Or Not Too Free?
Learners create a survey that examines what level of electronic surveillance might be acceptable to members of the school and community. They poll the community, and analyze the results in the form of graphs and a written news article.
Curated OER
Possessive Nouns
Review the use of apostrophes with possessive nouns. While just a quick look at the topic, this would be a great way to review the concept. There are two types of exercises for learners to complete. If more review is needed, a teacher...
Curated OER
Cell Size and Division or How Big Would You Want To Be if You Were a Cell?
Students investigate why cells divide. In this cell size lesson plan, students observe how far a solution travels into 3 different size model cells of agar. They answer questions about the most effect movement of "nutrients" into the...
Discovery Education
Sonar & Echolocation
A well-designed, comprehensive, and attractive slide show supports direct instruction on how sonar and echolocation work. Contained within the slides are links to interactive websites and instructions for using apps on a mobile device to...
California Academy of Science
Global Climate Change and Sea Level Rise
Ice is nice, and its condition on the planet has a significant effect. Junior geoscientists experiment with ice melting in both water and on land to discover how each affect the rising sea level. This detailed instructional activity...
Curated OER
Seeing is Believing - Or Is It?
Here is a great science activity. It extends the concept of vision into the area of optical illusions, perspective, and tessellation. This well-designed plan has tons of great activities, utilizes interesting video, and should lead to a...
Cornell University
Non-Newtonian Fluids—How Slow Can You Go?
Children enjoy playing with silly putty, but it provides more than just fun. Young scientists make their own silly putty using different recipes. After a bit of fun, they test and graph the viscosity of each.
Curated OER
A New Phase In Town
Middle schoolers explore heat energy and how it is used to change the phase of matter, and discover that temperature does not increase or decrease until the phase change is complete. This extremely well-written plan is packed with great...
Mathematics Vision Project
Module 6: Congruence, Construction, and Proof
Trace the links between a variety of math concepts in this far-reaching unit. Ideas that seem very different on the outset (like the distance formula and rigid transformations) come together in very natural and logical ways. This...
Perkins School for the Blind
The Germinator
How does a plant grow from a seed? Observe the process with a clever idea from the PBS television show ZOOM. Watch the video, then have your young botanists create their own germinators. The instructional activity described here is for...
Curated OER
An Introduction To Volume
Upper graders explore the topic of volume. In this math lesson plan, pupils count volume in cubic units, multiply to find volume, estimate volume, write a multiplication sentence to find the volume, and make a cost analysis of different...
Cornell University
Constructing and Visualizing Topographic Profiles
Militaries throughout history have used topography information to plan strategies, yet many pupils today don't understand it. Scholars use Legos and a contour gauge to understand how to construct and visualize topographic profiles. This...
Curated OER
Those Vexing Variables
Students recognize dependent and independent variables in an experiment by practicing manipulation of variables; students practice designing experiments that contain the two types of variables.
Teach Engineering
Glue Sticks Bend and Twist
Stick this resource in the "Use" column. In the second installment of a six-part series, learners use glue sticks to demonstrate forces. Using glue sticks, instructors can demonstrate tension, compression, and torsion.
Noyce Foundation
Sewing
Sew up your unit on operations with decimals using this assessment task. Young mathematicians use given rules to determine the amount of fabric they need to sew a pair of pants. They must also fill in a partially complete bill for...
Curated OER
THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT SPACE
Ninth graders set up a scale model of the solar system using the same scale for distance and diameter. They calculate scale distances and sizes for modeling the solar system and relate actual distances to difficulties in discovering and...
Inside Mathematics
Archery
Put the better archer in a box. The performance task has pupils compare the performance of two archers using box-and-whisker plots. The resource includes sample responses that are useful in comparing individuals' work to others.
Virginia Department of Education
How Many Triangles?
Something for young mathematicians to remember: the sum of any two sides must be greater than the third. Class members investigates the Triangle Inequality Theorem to find the relationship between the sides of a triangle. At the...
Virginia Department of Education
Surface Area of a Rectangular Prism
Wrap up a lesson on surface area with a resource that asks scholars to use the idea of wrapping paper to investigate surface area. They draw representations of rectangular prisms on graph paper to find the areas of the respective...
Curated OER
We All Scream for Ice Scream
High schoolers explore the formulas for volume of three-dimensional objects. They participate in various activities involving ice cream, ice cream cones, small candies, and gum balls, recording their calculations on a lab sheet.