Fourth graders explore electricity by examining the life of Benjamin Franklin.  In this biographical instructional activity, 4th graders listen to the teacher read facts of Benjamin Franklin's life and analyze his contributions to...

Middle schoolers explore multiple types of energy. For this energy lesson, students prepare a science fair project through completing a WebQuest. Middle schoolers investigate radiant, thermal, and biochemical energy.

Students explore materials and their properties. In this matter instructional activity, students identify objects and describe their properties. Students test and sort materials using an interactive whiteboard, followed by a group...

Students, working in expert groups, study a form of energy. They plan a slide show presentation using pictures, clip art, and student taken digital pictures that show the energy type they have become experts in. They use a planning sheet...

Young scholars investigate the human circulatory system by experimenting with hoses.  In this human body lesson plan, students create a system of hoses simulating the circulatory system which they utilize to pass objects through....

Claude Shannon was a mathematician and electrical engineer whose work underlies modern information theory and helped instigate the digital revolution. He was the first person to recognize how Boolean algebra could be used to great...

This is a straightforward project that shows you how data can be digitized and stored on magnetic recording media. You'll learn how alpha-numeric characters are digitized, and you'll use bar magnets to represent the individual data...

At the dawn of the computer age, magnetic core memory helped make data storage possible, and showed surprising staying power in a field where components are constantly being replaced by new and improved products.

Walter Houser Brattain discovered the photo-effect that occurs at the free surface of a semiconductor and was co-creator of the point-contact transistor, which paved the way for the more advanced types of transistors that eventually...

Find out about William Bradford Shockley, who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the first point-contact transistor and the invention of the more advanced junction transistor. His later research focused on developing...

The Discovery Channel provides numerous topics that are the most popular science topics taught in upper elementary and middle school. Content is organized by topics (Bacteria, Oceans, Solar System, etc.); all topics include quick facts,...