Seussville
The Lorax's Earth Day
Add a touch of Dr. Seuss whimsy to your Earth Day celebration with six pages consisting of Earth-friendly, inspiring, and engaging activities designed to enhance the beauty of your school campus and showcase the famous story, The...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Climate and Forest Ecosystem Services
Forests, through sequestration, capture excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and store it, aiding in climate change. The third installment in a four-part series on how climate impacts forests explores carbon sequestration....
Oklahoma State University
Math for Peanuts
Peanuts! Get your peanuts! Kids explore math, art, and agriculture concepts focused on peanuts. There is a brief informational text to get them started, and you'll find definitions of five in-text vocabulary words to address. Kids...
Curated OER
Our Natural Resources
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.
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: It's Pumpkin Time (Hall)
Looking for a Halloween-themed vocabulary lesson? Study words in context using Zoe Hall's story It's Pumpkin Time, an excellent informational text for budding readers. The spooky suggested words are: buds, gather, hollow,...
Brooklyn Museum
Fred Tomaselli
Kids will observe, write, and create as a way to better understand the work of artist Fred Tomaselli. Guided by great critical thinking questions, learners will first analyze the piece Field Guides. Then, they will write a creative...
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Schoolyard Biodiversity Investigation Educator Guide
In 1980, in the tropical rainforests of Panama, scientists discovered 1,200 species of beetles living in and around just 19 trees, with most of the species new to science—that's biodiversity! In the activity, learners work in teams to...
Biology Junction
Mollusks
Mollusks created every shell on Earth. Young scientists learn more about the phyllum mollusca in an informative presentation. It covers their characteristics, body plans, and relationships in the ecosystem. Then, it details each class of...
American Museum of Natural History
What's This? Gold
Cell phones are likely made of gold—at least part of them! An interesting lesson explains the conventional and not-so-conventional uses of the popular element gold. From the Inca empire to modern-day technology, learners discover gold...
Rivanna Regional Stormwater Education Partnership
Does It Soak Right In?
Which materials are best for groundwater runoff, and which are best for percolation? Discuss the water table with several experiments about different types of soil, pollution, precipitation, and filtration. The experiments assign...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Albedo, Reflectivity, and Absorption
What is reflectivity, and what does it have to do with the Earth's climate? As reflectivity is measured by albedo, scientists can gather information on Earth's energy balances that relate to global warming or climate change. Budding...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Understanding the Greenhouse Effect
Dive into the power of the sun with a two-part lesson. Budding scientists model the greenhouse effect in a hands-on activity, and then participate in a skit that explores the earth's energy balances and what really occurs in the...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Leaf Litter Ecology Lab
Some organisms spend their entire lives in leaf litter. The third in a series of six is a great lesson exploring the community of leaf litter. Groups gather and then spread leaf litter over white paper and remove leaves/twigs while...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Plant Phenology Data Analysis
Beginning in 1851, Thoreau recorded the dates of the first spring blooms in Concord, and this data is helping scientists analyze climate change! The culminating instructional activity in the series of four has pupils graph and analyze...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Review and Assessment: Causes and Effects of Climate Changes
The last activity in the series of five is a short one where individuals show what they've learned about the causes and effects of climate change. Working independently, they fill in a graphic organizer, then compare their notes with a...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Understanding the Greenhouse Effect
The greenhouse effect is important, for without it, life on Earth would not exist. An activity that includes modeling the greenhouse effect and acting out the Earth's energy balance makes up the first part in a series of seven...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Nature Walk and Ecosystem Introduction
A food web has no organism higher than a tertiary consumer because there wouldn't be enough energy left to sustain them. The fourth installment in a seven-part series begins with a nature walk to get pupils thinking about their...
Cornell University
Plant Cell Crime Scene
Use science to solve the mystery of the Poplar murder. Pupils use forensic botany to determine if a suspect could be the killer. By analyzing images from a Transmission Electron Microscope, learners determine if the material found on the...
Curated OER
Create a Non-native/Invasion Species
Students view a video about non-native/invasion species. They create a non-native/invasion species that they think would have an impact on farming, industry, recreation, or water in the local environment.
Curated OER
Break Even Analysis and Budgeting
Students analyze the use of break even charts in business planning. They examine the purpose and nature of budgets. They explore price elasticity and how to use Excel spreadsheets to manipulate financial information.
Curated OER
U.S. History: Antebellum Heroes and Villains
Eighth graders research and write reports on key figures of the Antebellum Period. The projects also include pictures, bibliographies, and timelines about their assigned figure. In addition, 8th graders present oral reports to classmates.
Curated OER
Preserving the Harvest: Dry it Out!
Young scholars explore how people preserved their food in the past. In food preservation lesson, students create different models that enable someone to dry out food, such as a food dehydrator. Young scholars also...
Curated OER
Dating a Volcanic Eruption
Young scholars discover how to "read" tree rings to determine the date of a volcanic eruption and the effects an eruption has on plant growth. After a lecture/demo, students utilize a worksheet imbedded in this plan to date an eruption.
Curated OER
Dating a Volcanic Eruption
Students discover the various ways in which tree rings can give information. After a brief disucssion of concentric tree rings, they use cross section cut outs of tree rings to identify the time and type of various naturally occuring...