Chicago Botanic Garden
Are All Plants Created Equal?
Photosynthesis requires energy and produces food, and cellular respiration produces energy and requires food. An interesting lesson plan analyzes the factors that affect the rates of photosynthesis and respiration. Classes spend one day...
National Wildlife Federation
I Speak for the Polar Bears!
Climate change and weather extremes impact every species, but this instructional activity focuses on how these changes effect polar bears. After learning about the animal, scholars create maps of snow-ice coverage and examine the yearly...
NASA
Things Are Not Always What They Seem
Science is magic that works. Magical color-changing beads and a coffee can that follows voice commands are just two examples of magic tricks that rely on science. After completing a hands-on activity and an experiment investigating the...
Oceanic Research Group
Heat Transfer and Cooling
Astronauts train underwater to simulate the change in gravity. An out-of-this-world unit includes three hands-on activities, one teacher demonstration, and a discussion related to some of the challenges astronauts face. Scholars apply...
Curated OER
Little Oyster: Ceramic Lesson
Children will love researching and then creating a bottom dwelling mollusk of their own. They watch clips describing the ocean ecosystem and how oysters fit into their environment. Next, they research what oysters eat and how they look....
Curated OER
Earth From Space
Learners watch a series of programs from NASA titled "Earth From Space". After viewing the program, they identify ways NASA is researching the reasons why the Earth is changing. They discuss the various levels of the atmosphere and...
Curated OER
Doing More In Less
Students watch segments of a NASA program called "Doing More In Less". In groups, they examine the concept of human exploration and how NASA has contributed to specific research. They are introduced to new vocabulary and answer...
Curated OER
Recipes for the Future
Students engage in real time interactions with researchers and are exposed to innovative research. They conduct an experiment designed to investigate the strength and maximum deflection of a composite material with and without the use of...
Curated OER
Where Next?
Students read an article explaining NASA's possible Mars landing sites. They use the Internet to research Mars and the Module. They are able to submit their own proposals for a landing site after researching the planet.
Curated OER
Special Edition: World Space Congress 2002: The New Face of Space
Students experience and study how space offers expanding resources for commerce, science, technology and education. They view how advances in space can and do improve life on Earth. Each student views a geological exploration within this...
Curated OER
Simple Rocket Science
Learners demonstrate Newton's Third Law of Motion. They discuss the history of rockets, observe how a rocket works, and draw a picture and write an explanation of the balloon experiment.
Curated OER
CONVECTION
Students experiment to produce a visual convection current in the classroom and compare it to the images taken of convection cells in the Sun. They analyze the source of the Sun's energy and this type of energy transport.
Curated OER
Modeling Hot and Cold Planets
Students, in teams, design and construct models of two planets, one hot and the other cold, using a variety of materials. They attempt to create the models out of substances that will actually show the greatest temperature differences...
Curated OER
Time to lend NASA a hand
In this measurement worksheet, students complete an experiment answer questions about how they measure the units of volume, temperature, and mass of certain objects. Students answer 5 questions.
NASA
Climate Change Inquiry Lab
With global temperatures on the rise faster than ever recorded, the effects of a heating planet could be devastating. Allow learners to discover just what the world is in store for if the warming continues through a series of videos, a...
NASA
Transportation and Space: Reuse and Recycle
What can I use in space? The three-lesson unit has groups research what man-made or natural resources would be available during space exploration or habitation. Team members think of ways that resources can be reclaimed or reused in...
NASA
Space Transportation: Reshooting the Moon
What does it take to get stuff to the Moon? Design teams create subsystems for a space transportation system to go to the Moon. The teams study Earth transportation components along with historical space transportation systems to guide...
NASA
Discovering the Milky Way
What do you call a tiny collection of galaxies? A puny-verse! Young scholars graph data gathered by scientists studying Cepheids. They attempt to identify a relationship between the variables through standard and logarithmical graphing....
NASA
Science Fiction Story
A instructional activity allows you to go back in time and see the big bang actually happen. Bazinga! In reality, pupils research the Big Bang Theory and theorize what it would be like to go back in time and see it happen. There are four...
NASA
Tools of the Trade
Did you know every state in the U.S. has at least one observatory? During the lesson, scholars research the cost of building and maintaining an observatory. They must present their information in a proposal to build a new observatory,...
International Technology Education Association
Pixel This!
Did the image I drew match the image you saw? By simulating a satellite and a ground station, teams of two transmit data in the form of pixels in order to recreate an image. They use four different levels of brightness, creating slightly...
NASA
How Rockets Work
Now, that's some fire power! A five-page handout provides a description of the basics of how rockets work. The reading explains Newton's Laws of Motion by beginning with defining some of the important terms. The article finishes by...
NASA
Exploring Data
Bring the sun to your class! Young scholars analyze actual solar wind data in the second lesson of a five-part series. Their analysis includes speed, temperature, and density data.
NASA
Watering Your Plants
Make sure plants have water to drink regularly. Learners investigate the parts of a watering system for plants. They design and create a watering system for a lunar plant growth chamber before explaining why it is important to have water...