Sixth graders explore the damage associated with an earthquake by designing a structure that can withstand earthquake intensities on a shaker board. They then view tips for preparing for an earthquake, and what...

Why do some items feel colder when they are the same temperature? How should you keep your soda cold? What makes the wind blow? These are just some of the things middle schoolers discover when completing a lesson on...

How does radiation affect our daily lives? Answer that question and others with a lesson that discusses radiation and its use in thermal energy transfer through electromagnetic waves. Pupils investigate vaporization and...

During a macromolecule lab, young chemists perform multiple tests, including iodine starch tests, to determine if eight mystery foods contain lipids, sugars, or starches.

Regional dialect can make a lovely poem even more beautiful. After translating the Scots words in "A Red, Red Rose" into modern English, class members identify the two similes Robert Burns uses in his poem.

Yuck, does my deodorant kill that? To test whether deodorant is anti-bacterial, class members use petri dishes to grow control bacteria and bacteria from sweat, and then compare them to see if deodorant effects the...

Young scientists investigate chemical and physical changes to the states of matter—gas, liquid, and solid—as well as solutions and suspensions with a variety of demonstrations, grand conversation, and an interactive quiz to check for...

Three Dog Night isn't just the name of a band; it is also the way an Australian tribe, who used dogs to stay warm, would describe the temperature on a cool evening. After reading about many different ways of measuring temperature, the...

Mid-ocean ridges, rift valleys, island arcs, mountain ranges, earthquakes, volcanoes ... there are so many features associated with plate tectonics. The 14th installment of a 23-part NOAA Enrichment in Marine sciences and Oceanography...

How is it possible for ocean water to have layers? The sixth installment of a 23-part NOAA Enrichment in Marine sciences and Oceanography (NEMO) program investigates factors that cause different water densities to occur. Experiments...

Now that you know the ocean has layers, let's name them. The seventh installment of a 23-part NOAA Enrichment in Marine sciences and Oceanography (NEMO) program covers terminology associated with ocean layers, such as thermocline and...

In 1879, Sir William Crookes discovered the fourth state of matter, plasma. The presentation covers states of matter, phase changes, density, pressure Pascal's Principle, buoyant force, Archimedes' Principle, Bernoulli's Principle,...

How does examining an ice core tell us about weather? Learners set up and explore fake ice cores made of sugar, salt, and ash to represent historical snowfall and volcanic eruptions. From their setups, scholars determine what caused the...

In the pre-lab, kindergarteners mimic the movements of the eruption of a volcano and discover various volcanoes around the United States. Then, pupils sort different types of volcanic rocks in the lab before learning how volcanoes grow...

Change the density of water by adding minerals. The presentation discusses density—from the definition to calculations—and applies it to the real world. It briefly mentions specific gravity, and finishes by showing Archimedes'...

Is losing cultural traditions the cost of social progress, or should people make stronger efforts to preserve these traditions? High schoolers watch a short film about the native Yup'ik people in Alaska and how they handle the shifts in...

Explore the consistency of the earth's layers and soil through modeling. By conducting an engaging experiment, learners develop a model for the earth's layers and a soil profile using edible materials. Each material is chosen based on...

Where does the pop in pop rocks come from? An engaging activity asks scholars to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in a package of Pop Rocks candy. Learners dissolve the candy in water and use the solubility of CO2 to determine its mass.

Heat up your lessons on boiling points. The resource provides a three-part activity: first, groups find the boiling point of solutions; second, they create boiling point curves for salt and sugar solutions; and third, they mix a solution...

"Waiting to Move," a photo essay by Ciril Jazbec, brings into sharp focus the threats posed by climate change. Class members examine images of Shishmaref Island and the Native Alaskan Inupiate coastal villages that are impacted by rising...

Examine how pollution makes its way into an ocean with help from a model watershed. Scholars use household items to recreate a mini-watershed, equipped with pollutants, that when mixed with rain drain into a model's body of...

Salinity is the focus of two experimenters that work to answer the question, How does salt change the physical properties of water? Super scientists compare the freezing rate of salt and fresh water, combine the two waters to...

Winter, spring, summer, and fall! Every season is covered in a 14-page list of writing prompts. Included are story starters, reflection questions, poetry topics, and more.

Stephen Perry invented and patented the modern rubber band in 1845. Young scientists put his discovery to work as they use rubber bands to observe entropy and enthalpy. They determine the change in free energy to figure out if it...