Wait til your class gets their hands on this! Aspiring engineers design a working robotic arm in the fifth and final installment in a series of ocean exploration lessons. Pupils learn about the use of underwater robots in ocean...

A set of first grade geology lessons focuses on plate tectonics and movement of plate boundaries. During the pre-lab, learners experience three types of plate movement through a kinesthetic demonstration. The lab...

Sediment samples from the ocean bottoms tell scientists about climate change, pollution, and changes in erosion for the area. Groups of learners focus on sediments and their movement through water. During a hands-on activity, they...

How do scientists provide evidence to support the theories they put forth? What clues do they put together to create these theories? After watching West of the West's documentary Island Rotation class members engage in a series of...

Students investigate the water cycle. In this water cycle science lesson plan, students participate in a series of activities that demonstrate evaporation, precipitation, and condensation.  Students describe their observations using...

Students label the names, relative temperature, distribution, and direction of flow of major ocean currents on a world map. They also explore and model the natural forces that affect the movement of ocean currents through demonstrations...

Pupils access prior knowledge of the water cycle by completing a KWL. In this water cycle instructional activity, students follow the movement of water through the water cycle.

A deep ocean current circles the globe at a force that is greater than 16 times all the world's rivers combined. Groups analyze the effects of submarine topography on deep ocean current speed. They then determine how this speed affects...

Take young scientists into the depths of the world's ocean with the second lesson of this three-part earth science series. After first drawing pictures representing how they imagine the bottom of the ocean to appear, students...

A more thorough presentation on coastal systems would be difficult to find! Detailed diagrams illuminate the offshore, shoreface, foreshore, and backshore zones of  beach. The sources and movement of sediments along the coastline...

Just as rocks move through the rock cycle, your giddy geologists will move descriptions around until they are all in the correct category. After cutting out several types of rock movement, learners determine whether the action is...

Students examine relationships and interactions between different types of water. They experiment with colored water of different temperature and salinity and discuss how the results relate to real ocean currents.

Students examine plate tectonics and the causative effect of earthquakes.  In this tectonics lesson students differentiate between the types of energy waves that cause earthquakes and tsunamis and how waves travel at different...

Young scholars are introduced to the components and importance of the water cycle. They are shown how groundwater moves using a model. Students list 9 places on earth where water is found. They define the terms cycle and water cycle.

Be shore to use this drifter resource. The third installment of a five-part series has learners using the NOAA's Adopt-a-Drifter website to track to movement of a drifter (buoy) in the ocean. Graphing the collected data on a map allows...

Students demonstrate an awareness of air as a substance that surrounds us and takes up space, and whose movement we feel as wind. They predict and describe how local weather conditions affect living things, including themselves.

Middle schoolers investigate the role of temperature and salinity in determining seawater density. They use a Temperature-Salinity Diagram to examine the effects of mixing on density.

Students describe the movement of water within the water cycle and identify the states of water as it moves through the water cycle.

Eighth graders are introduced to the Earth's hydrologic system including the cycling of water in the atmosphere and the movement of water on the surface of the planet using the Great Lakes watershed as an example.

Students study the flow of water in the environment.  In this water cycle lesson students evaluate the consequences of changes in the water cycle using data. 

In this ocean instructional activity, students complete a 13 question multiple choice on-line interactive quiz about ocean currents. Prior knowledge is assumed.

Learners investigate how solar energy is converted into heat in part two of the 10-part Discover Your Changing World series. They build and test homemade solar cookers to boil water and cook rice. Pupils consider the impact of heat...

Learners study the path and forms of water through Earth. In this water cycle lesson, students role-play water as it moves throughout the Earth. Learners play the water cycle game and complete various stations to learn about water forms...