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Food Chains
Fourth graders study food chains, producers, consumers, and decomposers. They play a food chain game and create food chain mobiles or posters. They take a nature hike around the school and observe various parts of a food chain.
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Characteristics of Snakes and Turtles
Students examine the characteristics of snakes and turtles and compare/contrast reptiles with mammals. They watch a video, answer discussion questions, complete information charts, conduct Internet research, and create a habitat diorama.
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Bird Up
Third graders identify basic physical and behavioral characteristics of birds and how they adapt to their environments. To organize and share scientific information with peers. They discuss similarities and differences among birds....
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What Lives in the Forest?
Students investigate nearby forests and record their interactions with trees as well as wild life. In this ecology lesson, students read the book, In the Woods: Who's Been Here?, and attend class observational field trips through...
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Planning a Railroad Online Lesson
Students design a train route using a topographical map. In this historical and spatial thinking lesson plan, students must plan a route through the Sierra Nevada mountains that a train could physically travel. Links to printable student...
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Structural and Behavioral Adaptations
Learners participate in a role playing lab that allows students to experience how different beak adaptations play a role in the type of food the animal can eat, therefore playing a role in the survival of the species.
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The Web of Life
Learners explore the interconnectedness of living things in an ecosystem. They use pictures and arrows to develop a food web, and participate in constructing a class food web with students representing various parts of the web.
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The Life Cycle of the Mealworm
Fourth graders provide a habitat for live mealworms and observe their life cycle. In this animal life cycle and scientific inquiry activity, 4th graders create a habitat for a live mealworm and observe and record related data as it...
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First Contact
Sixth graders have an opportunity to enhance their computer skills by using Internet as a resource tool and a vehicle for global interaction with other students.
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Rivers Through Time
Students read or have the book A River Ran Wild read to them. They discuss and reflect on the messages presented in the book. Students use their listening comprehension skills to draw conclusions. Students articulate several examples of...
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Tree Top Canopy Field Trip
Students visit the Greenheart Canopy Walkway. In this environmental lesson, students experience a coastal rain forest ecosystem. Students interact and explore the different layers of the rain forest.
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Predator Or Prey?
Students study the concept of predator/prey by researching specific examples of birds. They participate in a concept map/webbing activity to determine different characteristics of birds. They engage in a class discussion about...
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Biomes
Students collect information about different biomes, and locate the biomes on a world map. They read a climograph and match them to the appropriate biomes.
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What Are We?
Learners list and describe three types of surface water pollutants. They observe the effects of various water pollutants on algae growth. Three causes of each surface water pollutant is listed.
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Activity 1: Please Pass the Energy, Food Webs in the Upper Ocean and Hydrothermal Vent Communities
Middle schoolers create food webs for two different ocean communities. They are given cards showing organisms from the surface of the ocean. They arrange them in order of who eats whom. After this class activity, students create a food...
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Backyard Birds: Who's Who Out There?
Young scholars practice techniques of field observation and data-gathering while studying local bird population, describe ecosystem as complex combination of elements, which can affect or be affected by each other, and determine effects...
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Ask Rustle the Leaf About...Acid Rain
In this acid rain worksheet, students read about acid rain from a leaf's perspective. They fill in the blanks with 9 terms to complete a paragraph about acid rain. They also are given 8 clues to complete a crossword puzzle. Their is a...
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Investigating Local Ecosystems
Learners observe a local area for living organisms and their habitats. In this local ecosystems lesson, students complete an online field journal. Learners share their findings and sort them into categories. Students visit a...
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Body Voyager
Students explore the significance of a resting and an active heart rate. In this heart lesson students chart data on their pulse and draw a diagram of the heart.
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Charlotte's Web
Fourth graders focus on fluency by reading the book Charlotte's Web. In this reading strategies lesson, 4th graders partner read, do guided reading, and independent reading to increase fluency. Students use Venn Diagrams, discuss...
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Seed Dispersion of Strawberries and Dandelions
Students investigate how seeds are dispersed on land. In this plant biology lesson plan, students use a dissecting microscope to study strawberry seeds and dandelion seeds, they draw what they see, then create a hypothesis on the...
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Get to Know a Fish
Students discover the anatomy of a fish by identifying its body parts. In this oceanography lesson plan, students view a live fish in their classroom and draw a poster of the fish one body part at a time while identifying it....
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Vermicomposting
Second graders create an eco-bin and study the habitat of the worm in soil. In this vermicomposting lesson, 2nd graders observe the effects of water ( too much or too little) and other factors on the eco-bin.
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The Magic School Bus Takes a Dive
Students learn along with Ms. Frizzle's class. In this Magic School Bus lesson plan, students find out how partners can help run a race just as Wanda learns that survival on the coral reef often depends on cooperation.