Online Publications
Become a Journalist
Explore the newspaper as a unique entity with a detailed and extended unit. The unit requires learners to consider the newspaper's role in democracy, think about ethics, practice writing and interviewing, and examine advertising and news...
Curated OER
Sports Helmets and Impact Testing of Polymers
Students examine the importance of good quality safety gear. In this investigative instructional activity, students will tests various polymers, collect data, and analyze the data to determine which polymer is best for safety helmets....
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Killer Wrapper
Students examine the importance of food safety and the impact it has on their lives. In this health lesson students complete an oral report on food poisoning and design a low cost "safe" packing material for bread.
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Farming in Space
Students research, design, and run plant growth experiments online. They explore websites, design an experiment using an animation-based building block program, construct a soda bottle hydroponic production unit and a cardboard plant...
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How Much Sugar is in Bubble Gum?
Students conduct an experiment to determine the percentage of sugar in various types of gum. They weigh the gum after chewing it to determine the amount of mass lost from each piece of gum, analyze the data, and create a graph of the...
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Determining Mean, Range, Median, Mode, and Probability
Students calculate mean, median, range, mode and probability. Then, working in teams, they use data from their workplace to compute values for these terms. Finally the class explores the term "probability" using a die.
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Proportionality: Modeling the Future
Students explore and examine how patterns, measurement, ratios and proportions are utilized in the research development and production of airplanes. They meet a pilot from the Federal Aviation Association who describes the growth of air...
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State Economy Chart
Fifth graders research and record statistics on the economy of an assigned state. They create a spreadsheet in Excel to report the data and a 3D Pie graph using the Chart Wizard in Excel to represent their states' data.
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Science: Let's Have a Cool Lunch
First graders develop problem-solving skills by designing methods for keeping lunch boxes cool. Once they determine the amount of sunlight and heat generated in shaded and unshaded areas, they explore ways to provide shade. Finally, 1st...
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Investigating Factors That Affect Rate of Enzyme Action
Students explore the properties of enzymes. In this chemical reaction lesson, students explore enzymes through a Web-quest and investigative study. Students will collect and summarize data and create a class presentation. This lesson is...
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My Community
First graders design a Powerpoint presentation to reflect information about their community. In this community lesson, 1st graders create slides to explain the weather, geography and other information about the city.
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Mutualism and Co-evolution A study of Flowering Plants and their Pollinators: Biology, Plants
These lessons use a variety of methods and approaches to teach flowering plant biology which includes seed germination; plant growth and food production through photosynthesis; plant transpiration and respiration; sexual reproduction...
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New Creations from Six Simple Machines
Middle schoolers explore different types of simple machines and research the concepts of force, effort, and work. They conduct Internet research and complete a worksheet about examples of simple machines used in everyday life. Students...
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Solar System Tourist Bureau
Students, working in teams, role-play as advertising agents creating ad campaigns for a planet in the solar system. They design commercials for video, Hyperstudio, or Web pages. The activity includes research, all the production stages,...
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TE Activity: Super Spinners!
Students make spinners to investigate rotational inertia, rotational speed, angular momentum, and velocity. They make two sets of spinners that have different mass distributions and shapes. They complete a worksheet while experimenting...
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What's the Fizz Factor
Learners as a class create a fountain using both coke soda, and mentos candy. In this science lesson, students test which combination of coke and mentos products produce the tallest fountain. Learners use the scientific method to track...
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Jelly Bean Statistics
Students develop a process of packing jelly beans efficiently. In this math lesson plan, students explain the quality control methods they designed. They construct histograms using Excel spreadsheet.
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The U.S. Constitutional Tradition
Students study the Constitution and then in an interactive group activity create a "Second Constitutional Convention" specifically designed to evaluate and trim down the number of amendments.
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Nitrogen Fixation, OR What a Gas!
Students gain skill in the design, implementation, and reporting of a scientific research project using the scientific method. They set up an experiment to determine the effect of adding the Rhizobium bacteria to one group of legume...
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Viewing Guide for The Ponder Heart
Students conduct research through library and Internet resources. They research in a multidisciplinary fashion, and make creative leaps in their analysis and interpretation of the novella.
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Marine Environmental Geology
Students take this course as an introduction to the aspects of marine geology and oceanography that affect the environment and marine resources. Topics include estuarine oceanography and sediments, eutrophication of coastal waters,...
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Rain Forest Adventures
Young scholars discover locations of the world's rain forests. Once they identify the animals, plants, products, and resources located in them, they construct they own rain forest terrariums. By comparing and contrasting the two types...
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Wildcat Dumping
Young scholars design and print an educative pamphlet addressing Wildcat Dumping in their community by conducting research. They conduct a survey by investigating local occurrences of Wildcat Dumping and collecting data to share with...
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To Fish or Not to Fish?
Learners demonstrate the decision-making process for marine reserves designations. In this role-playing lesson students analyze maps and data relating to a proposed reserve. They formulate the best decisions based on overall issues.