Curated OER
What Can We Lose? What Do We Lose as we Gain Force With A Lever?
Third graders view a demonstration of a teeter totter as a basis for assessing pre-knowledge of a lever. They create a KwL chart. Students work in small groups to conduct a variety of experiments. The first requires students to tie books...
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Survival
Young scholars determine the best material from which to make a jacket to keep the body warm in a cold, dry, windy climate. This task assesses the student's abilities to perform an entire investigation.
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Transformations of Energy
Seventh graders investigate the relationship between energy and matter, and measure the mass of various objects. They listen to a teacher-led lecture about potential energy, and in small groups measure the mass of various objects such...
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Free Fall Graphing Exercise
Twelfth graders practice their graphing skills in an exercise about acceleration due to gravity. Lesson opens with a demonstration of acceleration due to gravity and a brief discussion. Students complete a worksheet and go over answers...
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Starch Yer Thinkin' About Corn Products
Seventh graders study the parts of corn and explore the role of starch. In this corn products lesson students prepare a model of water and stones.
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Center of Gravity
Seventh graders determine the center of gravity of an object. They get card stock objects to balance on pencil eraser and a meter stick to balance with same # of weighted string(s) on each side. They get meter stick to balance with...
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Keep the Environment Clean
Students discuss ways our environment becomes polluted. They make a list of ways to keep it clean.
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Land Safely...
Students model the preparation needed for a soft-landing on a planet or object in space. They do this by packaging a raw egg with certain material, and dropping the egg from a given height to test the packaging effectiveness.
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What To Do After The Hands-Are-On
Young scholars perform various demonstrations for each of Newton's Laws, collect data, and write a conclusion for each.
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Meteorology (Condensation)
Second graders define condensation and evaporation. They identify and describe the steps in the water cycle. They ask questions to end the lesson.
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Coat Caper
Students examine pollen and fibers taken from a garment. They analyze pollen from new hybrids and compare it to the samples from the garment then make individual conclusions concerning the specific historical authenticity of the garment.
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Coffee Cooling
Students explore the factors that affect how long coffee stays hot. They develop a question and a testable hypothesis for one factor such as initial temperature or size of opening of the container. Then they design and conduct an...
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That's the Way the Ball Bounces
Students investigate and compare the bouncing ability of the materials from which four different balls are made. They determine which material performs the best for use as a basketball. After collecting data in a small group they...
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The Nutritional Content of Food
Students are given three unknown samples and must perform two chemical tests in order to determine if the samples contains protein and/or starch. Students work with corrosive or toxic reagents.
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Plants
Students illustrate the major parts of a plant, classify some plant foods we eat as roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds. They also name some animals that use seeds, leaves, and fruit for food.
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Google Earth on the Range
Eighth graders use Google Earth to study the landscape of Utah. In this Utah landscape lesson, 8th graders view landscape photos and work in partners to analyze the pictures. Students write a paragraph that describes the landscape and...
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Ice Cold
Students design and conduct an experiment to investigate what happens when salt and ice come together and to determine if one form of salt is better for melting ice on steps and sidewalks.
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Snell's Law (And Then Some)
Students conduct an experiment to test Snell's Law using a block of lucite and a ray box. They measure the light rays as they impinge upon the block. Students are also asked to draw the situation of the lab or create a model of the...
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Biomimicry: Working Together, Cooperative Design
Middle schoolers explore the concept of biomimicry. In this cooperative design activity, students consider how cooperation is connected to nature and then collaborate to create their own cooperative designs for the future.
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What's Your Latitude?
Students measure the height of items using an astrolabe. In this latitude instructional activity students construct a sextant and determine height and latitude with it.
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Making Craters
Young scholars study craters and identify the different things that characterize craters. In this crater lesson students create a model of an impact crater.
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Introduction to Graphical Representation of Data Sets in Connection to Cellular Growth
Learners practice graphing relationships between variables by studying topics such as exponential growth and decay. They conduct a series of numerical experiments using a computer model and a variety of physical experiments using mold,...
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Help! I'm Under Too Much Pressure!
Students play with a ping pong ball sized piece of modeling clay observing what happens to the clay as they play with it and write their observations in their notebooks. They share the results of their observations introducing the term...
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Soaring With Air Power
Fourth graders view a Newton's Apple show that explores glider mechanics, explore the four forces, build and fly a glider to specific guidelines. They adjust the glider for greater accuracy and distance using four forces, and assess...