Sickle cell disease only occurs when both parents contribute the trait, and mostly in those of African descent. Where did it come from? How did it evolve? Tony Allison, a molecular biologist, noticed a connection between sickle cell and...

The pocket mouse can be light brown like the sands of the desert, or dark brown like the volcanic lava flows that are interspersed throughout New Mexico's Valley of Fire. It seems that predators have weeded out light colored mice in this...

Trying to plan an engaging elementary science unit on natural resources? Conserve your energy! This five-part series of lessons and hands-on activities has exactly what you need to teach young scholars about the importance of conservation.

All synthetic materials began as natural materials. An engaging lesson begins with a hands-on activity and an example of the type of research that scholars perform independently. Then pupils receive a topic and begin researching the...

Have your class do research on natural disasters and create a presentation using this resource. In completing this activity, learners apply the five geography themes to their research. They write a paper describing their results. It's a...

Charles Darwin and Jean Baptiste Lamarck are credited for developing the theory of natural selection. After teaching your beginning biologists about acquired characteristics, they read the included selection and answer questions that...

Fifty eye-catching pages contain six lessons about Roald Dahl's novel, Matilda. Each lesson has a theme and covers a different subject—literacy, social-emotional learning, science, and geography. Scholars analyze characters, examine...

Step into the great outdoors and develop young scientists' skills of observation with a nature journaling lesson. Given a specific focus or goal, children practice making and recording observations of nature through written descriptions...

Sixth graders classify their regions' natural disaster(s). Within this instructional activity students enhance their research skills by utilizing different resources, as well as their writing skills by composing short research papers.

Darwin explained the connection between species of finches 150 years before scientists understood DNA. Technology and progressing science proved he was right, yet many struggle to understand how natural selection happens. Scholars use...

Discuss wants and needs with your elementary ecologists and get them to consider what would happen to our natural resources if we all got everything that we want. Learners play a card sorting game and take an ecological footprint quiz on...

North American Indian civilizations had already been in place for over 10,000 years before the arrival of European settlers. Introduce your young historians to Indian tribes that lived in the Chesapeake region in the...

Beginning with a general discussion about natural gas, methane, and hydrocarbons, a few videos and diagrams are projected to support the lecture. Individuals participate in a brief activity by drinking juice through a straw, and then...

Who wouldn't love to get a letter from a blue bird? Elementary art enthusiasts analyze the social and historical context of Ason Yellowhair's Navajo piece, Bird and Cornstalk Rug. They examine the construction and images on the rug...

A read-aloud anthology offers stories all about nature's life cycles. Over three weeks, second graders listen to and discuss tales about the cycles of daytime, nighttime, seasons, plants, trees, frogs, butterflies, and water. Following...

If two is company and three's a crowd, then what's e? Scholars observe how changes in the base affect the graph of a logarithmic function. They then graph the natural logarithm function and learn that all logarithmic functions can be...

Coal forms from the ancient remains of plants that were alive on Earth before the dinosaurs! Scholars use their t-charts from the previous instructional activity over resources and research to determine if their information is correct....

Your class will learn about natural resources and man-made items and differentiate between them. They chart resources from seven pictures and explain how each natural resource is used.

Third graders recognize what our natural resources are and their importance. In this natural resource recycling lesson, 3rd graders understand why it is important to recycle and conserve natural resources. Students can explain how...

Young scholars explain how the availability of natural resources has affected human settlement patterns. They recognize the interactions of human populations on environments and compare the growth of two ancient cities in relation to...

Introduce your class to making an educational PowerPoint. They will make the presentation based on four different wonders of the world. Note: If PowerPoint is not available, you can modify this lesson plan to the technology you do have.

While the content of this instructional activity is more specific to the first grade, the directions given to work on a PowerPoint are well written. These directions could be used by anyone, with any content. Younger learners may need...

The members of your economics class may be busy earning graduation credits, but the credit they should be concerned about is their financial credit. The third lesson in a unit about Hurricane Katrina and other events that can result in...

Your junior highers will learn about which objects are natural and classify objects as abiotic or biotic. Your class will trace human products to their natural resources using matter cycles and then create their own definition of nature.