Berkshire Museum
The Three Life-Giving Sisters: Plant Cultivation and Mohican Innovation
Children gain first-hand experience with Native American agriculture while investigating the life cycle of plants with this engaging experiment. Focusing on what the natives called the Three Sisters - corn, beans, and squash - young...
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Climate Change in My City
Young scholars investigate the climate changes occurring locally, regionally and globally over the last one hundred years. They brainstorm and predict whether the current year's weather was warmer or colder than last year then check the...
Space Awareness
Let's Map the Earth
Before maps went mobile, people actually had to learn how to read maps. Pupils look at map elements in order to understand how to read them and locate specific locations. Finally, young cartographers discover how to make aerial maps.
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Traditional Weather Observations
Students explore traditional methods of weather observation. In this weather lesson plan, students interview grown-ups regarding wind. Students learn how winds can help forecast weather.
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Predicting: Making a Hypothesis
Students analyze information from various sources to create a hypothesis about the origin of a family artifact. Students create a hypothesis about the origin of the item and write a paragraph explaining why they believe the hypothesis is...
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Observing Sea Ice
Students study and observe types of sea ice found in Alaska. In this sea ice lesson, students use the student network for observing weather to study the different types of sea ice. Students study sea ice depicted in Alaskan art.
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Day 5 - Science Plants - germination - growth- What plants do we need to survive?
Students look at the crops of the settlers. In this crop lesson, students discuss why each crop was important to the settlers and how they used it. They plant seeds and track and observe the growth.
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Focusing on Lenses
Young scholars explore scientific observations by examining the parts of a microscope. In this optics lesson plan, students discuss the importance of a focal point and focal distance when utilizing an optical device such as a microscope....
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Water: Our Most Important Beverage
Third graders create a KWL chart about water. In this environmental science lesson, 3rd graders demonstrate how much water on Earth is usable. They act out the different stages of the water cycle.
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Making Prehistory
Students create mock fossil records based on current scientific theories about prehistory. By learning about what fossil records teach us about different prehistoric time periods, students gain a greater understanding of theories of...
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Mirror Image
Why does practice make perfect? Give your class insight into procedural memory, where we learn to do new things — then continue to improve through repetition. By attempting to draw shapes while looking in a mirror, learners observe their...
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Science and Natural Philosophy Before the Seventeenth Century
Students complete a worksheet about some of the natural philosophers in history. They use graph paper and create a timeline with the dates of birth and names of a list of natural philosophers. They list four questions concerning life and...
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The Historiography on Robert Boyle: Was Boyle the Progenitor of Modern Science?
Students participate in a warm-up activity by attending a football match writing an account of who won the game. They discuss how their account could differ from someone else's account of the game. They discuss how different people's...
Peace Corps
Brief Encounters
How are Pandyas different than Chispas? Explore cultural norms and societal behaviors with an engaging role-play activity. Split into groups of two hypothetical cultural groups, the formal Pandyas and the sociable Chispas, and another...
American Institute of Architects
Architecture: It's Elementary!—First Grade
Build an interest and appreciation for architecture in your young learners with this fun 10-lesson art unit. Engaging children in using their five senses, the class first observes the environment around them, paying special attention to...
National Christmas Tree Association
Merry Christmas, Geraldine
If you're reading the story "Merry Christmas, Geraldine" by Holly Keller, this is a fantastic cross-curricular resource to use. Complete with activities for language arts, science, social studies, art, and math, you'll get the most out...
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Sky Watching
Students complete night-sky observations to understand how our knowledge of the sky has been enhanced by telescopes. Students complete a timeline worksheet giving the history of telescopes. Students then then make their own observations...
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Where's My Mummy: Preservation Techniques
To observe preservation techniques firsthand, learners dry a flower in sand and compare cucumber slices soaked in salt water for a week with slices left out to dry in the open air. Video resources (not attached) include one about mummies...
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Here Today. . .Gone Tomorrow
Learners observe that there are threatened and endangered bird species in Illinois, why they have been given this status and how it relates to endangered species on a worldwide basis. they participate in the Project WILD "Oh, Deer" or...
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Advanced Critical Reading: Biomimetics
Instruct your class on biomimetics while practicing reading comprehension with this instructional activity. Learners read a passage that describes the efforts of scientists, starting with Leonardo da Vinci, to emulate nature to solve...
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Manduca
Young scholars investigate the basic survival needs of both hornworms and humans. They compare and contrast the them by making a class list.
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Tree Cookies
Students identify heartwood, sapwood, and a tree's annual rings, infer from a tree's rings what damage or stress might have occurred in its life, and make a time-line of human history that coincides with a tree's rings.
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The Delicate Balance - Iowa's Natural Resources
Discover the natural resources in Iowa by studying it's history. In this environmental instructional activity, your students will observe a topographical map of Iowa and identify where its most valuable resources are. They complete an...
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The Need For Shelter
Fifth graders build a shelter to protect themselves from rain. They perform durability and water proof testing on the shelters. They make observations of plants found in the Amazon rainforest.