Albert Shanker Institute
Economic Causes of the March on Washington
Money can't buy happiness, but it can put food on the table and pay the bills. The first of a five-lesson plan unit teaches pupils about the unemployment rate in 1963 and its relationship with the March on Washington. They learn how to...
Curated OER
How Close Is Our Estimate?
Fifth graders estimate perimeter, area, and volume. They measure perimeter and area using nonstandard units of measurement. Students add and subtract non-standard units of measurement. They add mixed numbers and simplify the sum.
Curated OER
Outlining Area
Explore measuring various objects using square centimeters. Learners create various shapes using five centimeter cubes, calculate the area in square centimeters of different classroom objects, and discover who has the largest mouth,...
National Wildlife Federation
Massive Migrations
Turn your students into flocks of migratory birds for this fun activity on animal migration. Prior to the activity, the teacher creates four different migration routes in the classroom or any available open space, labeling nesting...
Curated OER
Come Fly with Me . . . Open a Book: Travels through Literature
This detailed overview of a curriculum unit suggests using travel literature to engage and stimulate your third graders’ interest in reading. The suggested reading list includes fiction and non-fiction materials and offers urban children...
Curated OER
Devising a Measure for Correlation
How well does your class understand the concept of correlation? Use an activity to explore different methods of calculating correlation. Working alone and then in groups, your class will make decisions on what math to apply to the...
Curated OER
Measurement Activity
Students line themselves up from smallest to tallest at the chalkboard with the teacher marking their heights. After recording their names on the board next to their mark, they work with a partner to measure their height using several...
Curated OER
Burger King Investigation
Students study data on the nutritional value of Burger King meals in order to discover its nutritional value and also to compare the meals, using mathematical computation, to the recommended daily diet. In this data handling lesson...
Mathematics Assessment Project
Identifying Similar Triangles
Math whizzes work with angle sums and exterior angles to figure out the measure of other angles. This particular publication provides comprehensive support in the form of an anticipatory activity, questions designed to prompt discussion,...
Curated OER
Light Plants and Dark Plants, Wet Plants and Dry Ones
Young scholars plant sunflower seeds in plastic cups, and once germinated, these are exposed to different conditions of light levels and/or soil moisture contents. Students measure growth of the seedlings every few days using...
Curated OER
Practice with Mass
Fourth graders investigate the weight/mass of a number of items using grams, and equivalents. They examine the use of a triple beam balance before massing objects including oil and water. They go over the weights they amassed and weigh...
Curated OER
Teddy Bears and Friends
Children begin by making direct comparisons between objects and putting a number of objects into order according to length. They are also introduced to measuring with multi-link cubes which allows them to compare objects which cannot be...
Curated OER
Earth Kids: Kindergarteners Taking Care of the Earth
Students explore a variety of ways of how to care for the environment in the nine lessons of this unit. They observe how to be responsible "Earth Kids."
Shodor Education Foundation
Triangle Area
While the lesson focuses on right triangles, this activity offers a great way to practice the area of all triangles through an interactive webpage. The activity begins with the class taking a square paper and cutting in in half; can they...
Mathematics Vision Project
Module 5: Modeling with Geometry
Solids come in many shapes and sizes. Using geometry, scholars create two-dimensional cross-sections of various three-dimensional objects. They develop the lesson further by finding the volume of solids. The module then shifts...
Teach Engineering
Efficiency of an Electromechanical System
How efficient is a motor in a LEGO set? Future engineers conduct an activity where a LEGO motor-generator system raises an object to a specified height. They then show what they learned and use their measurements to calculate the energy...
Curated OER
Getting it Right! An Investigation of the Pythagorean Theorem
In order to learn about the Pythagorean Theorem, young mathematicians investigate relations and patterns between different sides of a right triangle to look for possible relations among the squared sides. Once they have established the...
Mathematics Assessment Project
Modeling Motion: Rolling Cups
Connect the size of a rolling cup to the size of circle it makes. Pupils view videos of cups of different sizes rolling in a circle. Using the videos and additional data, they attempt to determine a relationship between cup...
Teach Engineering
Water Remediation Lab
Water filtration — that's pure genius! Groups test the ability of a water filter to purify water by running chlorine contaminated water through a filter and measuring the chlorine concentrations as they filter the water. They then graph...
Mathematics Assessment Project
Estimating Length Using Scientific Notation
Would you rather have a million dollars or 1 x 10^6 dollars? To find the answer to this question, class members first complete an assessment task converting numbers between decimal notation and scientific notation. They then take...
Teach Engineering
Quantum Dots and Colors
Introduce teams to quantum dot solutions with an activity that has them expose solutions to a blacklight, observe the colors, and take measurements. Groups graph the data and analyze the dependence between particle size and...
Teach Engineering
Preconditioning Balloons: Viscoelastic Biomedical Experiments
What does stretching a balloon have to do with equilibrium? Groups explore preconditioning by stretching a balloon to a point of equilibrium. They then measure the amount of force required to stretch the balloon to the same point several...
Mathematics Assessment Project
Maximizing Area: Gold Rush
Presenting ... the gold standard for a lesson. Learners first investigate a task maximizing the area of a plot for gold prospecting. They then examine a set of sample student responses to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.
Curated OER
Representing Data 1: Using Frequency Graphs
Here is a lesson that focuses on the use of frequency graphs to identify a range of measures and makes sense of data in a real-world context as well as constructing frequency graphs given information about the mean, median, and range of...