Space Awareness
Making A Sundial
Can people really measure time just by using the sun? Scholars venture outside on a nice, sunny day to build sundials and learn how people measured time 600 years ago. The class builds two different sundials while gaining practice with...
Space Awareness
Global Warming of the Atmosphere
Scientists know the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years. Scholars learn about the amount of thermic radiation absorbed by air and what happens to the rest of the...
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
Polar Vortex Interactive
An interactive lesson places pupils as scientists who must learn why the ozone layer is being destroyed by analyzing the data from multiple satellites. The first analysis shows how UV is related to the ozone cycle. The second...
Teaching Tolerance
Consuming and Creating Political Art
A picture is worth a thousand words, but political art may be worth even more! After examining examples of political cartoons, murals, and other forms of public art, class members create their own pieces to reflect their ideals and...
Curated OER
Picture This! Building Photo-Based Writing Skills
High schoolers analyze photographs as a development activity for their literacy skills. They will review the 6 Q's feature for analyzing photographs and analyze a variety of photographs and then write comments in the space around the...
Curated OER
"It's All About Grandma Chic": Reading Informational Text
This New York Times "Learning Network" exercise on reading informational text poses 6 questions about a high-interest article on teen fashion. The article meant to be review with is resource, "More than meets the iPhone Lens", is rather...
Certificate Street
Good Reader Award Certificate
Taking time to celebrate the success and hard work of children is vital to their growth as learners. Use this certificate to recognize the progress of young readers as they develop their fluency and reading comprehension skills.
Curated OER
Challenges and Rewards
Students are to research a specific disaster after seeing the Challenger explosion. They are to create a collage for the disaster they are choosing to show.
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
A Distant View
Learners investigate the essential concepts of how lenses work to magnify vision, and then build simple telescopes to demonstrate their understanding. They write a description of how their telescope could be improved and how it works.
Curated OER
"One Giant Leap for Mankind"
Students explore the significance of the Apollo 11 lunar landing by interviewing an adult for memories of the mission. They incorporate their interviews into news articles as 'journalists' in July 1969 to document this historic 'step for...
Curated OER
Destination Red Planet
Students explore reasons why people are interested in exploring other planets. After reading an article, they identify developments in the mission to Mars. Using the internet, they research the history of exploring Mars and create a...
Curated OER
Cell Structure and Function
Students discuss scientific advances brought about by the Mars Surveyor Space Program which impact on daily life, identify laboratory apparatus like microscopes, slides and coverslips, and use the microscopes to view cells and organisms.
Curated OER
Seeing a Dwarf Planet Clearly: Pluto
In this dwarf planet worksheet, students use images from the Hubble Space Telescope and they determine the scale of the image, they identify the largest features in the images, they calculate the volume of Pluto and they create a model...
Curated OER
Book Excerpt from "The 23rd Cycle"
In this solar storms worksheet, students read an excerpt from the book "The 23rd Cycle: Learning to Live with a Stormy Star". Students answer 7 questions about the effects of solar storms on radiation exposure, health risk of airline...
Curated OER
Solar System Search
Students research topics related to space and the planets using the Internet. They explore various websites, construct scale models of the solar system, and create a travel brochure using HyperStudio computer software.
Curated OER
Landscape Painting
Third graders paint a landscape that demonstrates the illusion of space. In this visual arts lesson, 3rd graders paint a creek with reflections as the focus and include images showing foreground, middle ground, and background...
Curated OER
The Magic School Bus Out of This World
Students learn along with Ms. Frizzle's class. In this Magic School Bus lesson plan, students explore craters that objects of different sizes and weights (marbles, Ping-Pong balls, and aluminum foil balls) create.
Curated OER
Animal Morphs
Students explore animal drawing. In this cross curriculum drawing, photography, and animals lesson, students combine computer drawing and freehand drawing to create an animal and its environment using a photograph of their...
Curated OER
School Redesign and Multiple Intelligences
Students examine their own intelligence to find areas of strength after studying the multiple intelligences. In this diverse learning styles lesson, students analyze how the school environment fosters or fails students of diverse...
Curated OER
Mammals: Mammals and Their Ways
Students study the difference between innate and learned behaviors. They observe the adaptations and behaviors of mammals in this series of lessons.
Curated OER
Circles to Spheres
Students investigate circles and spheres. In this space shapes lesson, students compare and contrast two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes. Students investigate the relationship between plane and space shapes.
Curated OER
School-Home Links: Spaces and Letter Format
In this writing format worksheet, students learn to leave spaces between the words in a sentence by writing four sentences that describe their favorite food. Students have their family check their writing on the format for upper and...
Curated OER
Learning About the Stars
First graders study stars. In this space science instructional activity, 1st graders determine that it is best to observe stars on a clear night and define various qualities of stars.