Lesson Plan
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Air Quality Issues

For Teachers 9th - 11th
Students identify the different layers of the atmosphere. They examine the different types of air pollutants. They also discover laws in effect that work to protect the environment.
Lesson Plan
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Cavern Life: The Food Web

For Teachers K - 12th
Students explain the importance of elements on a food web. They realize that without light there can be no life. They perform various activities based on grade level.
Lesson Plan
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Spectral Surprise

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students experience a model that produces, separating, and displaying spectral colors.
Lesson Plan
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Projecting Spectra

For Teachers Higher Ed
Students use two methods to show and study the colors in the visible spectrum.
Lesson Plan
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A Journey of Discovery with RXTE

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students complete different missions to examine the topic of x-ray sources. They use satellite images and websites to gather the information they need to complete the lesson. They complete a worksheet to end the lesson.
Lesson Plan
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Sizing Up Sound

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders are introduced to the concepts of sound waves and frequency. As a class, they listen to the differences between different types of instruments. To end the lesson, they practice identifying low and high pitches and playing...
Lesson Plan
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How a Circuit Works

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students discover the basic principles of circuits by designing and testing some of their own. They are told that circuits usually have a power source such as a battery and a resistor such as a light. Students make a circuit using a...
Lesson Plan
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Life Unplugged

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students explore renewable and non-renewable energy sources, discuss how each source was created, and identify and sketch out the cycle of energy for each renewable source.
Lesson Plan
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An Eclipsing Binary System with a Precessing Accretion Disk

For Teachers 11th - 12th
Students work together to complete an experiment over binary sources. They determine values for the orbital period of certain objects and interpret intensity changes. They also calculate a value for the period of precession of an...
Lesson Plan
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Moon WebQuest

For Teachers 3rd
Third graders research basic information about the moon and identify the phases and order of the phases of the moon. They conduct Internet research, complete a moon WebQuest, and write a magazine article about the moon using their...
Lesson Plan
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All The News

For Teachers 7th - 10th
Young scholars simulate newspaper critics in the topics of heat and temperature. They write a scientific critique of evidence and claims used in a newspaper article and research using KIE software. They write notes on the letter to the...
Lesson Plan
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Earthquake Waves

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders pour three cups of sand on the top of a plastic table near the edge. They tap the table lightly with the rubber mallet. When they tap the table lightly they see the sand ump into the air.
Lesson Plan
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Jell-O Optics

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Students observe an activity with Jell-O to learn about optics.  In this investigative lesson students fill out a handout on the activity that helps them to investigate the index of refraction and the speed of light. 
Worksheet
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Star Magnitudes

For Students 9th - 12th
In this stars worksheet, students use a chart comparing the absolute and apparent magnitudes for different stars to complete 4 fill in the blank and 2 short answer questions.
Lesson Plan
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THe Decomposition of Water

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students collaborate in an experiment where they decompose water into simpler substances through the process of electrolysis. They collect, measure, and observe data and then place the data into a table. Accomodations for students with...
Lesson Plan
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Mars

For Teachers 1st
First graders listen as the teacher reads a copy of the WEEKLY READER that talks about Mars and ask questions accordingly. They again listen as a section about Earth is read from the magazine. Now, the class orally compare and contrast...
Lesson Plan
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Swamp Thing

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers create a build-it-yourself boat that runs on two small electric motors. Swamp Thing has an electronic brain that can be controlled and steered with a flashlight.
Lesson Plan
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Gonna Take a Sedimentary Journey

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Learners collect water samples from a local source, test it, filter it and identify the materials suspended in it. Students disucss the possible sources of sediment in their watershed.
Lesson Plan
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Trash...it really piles up!

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students investigate a contemporary "midden" by analyzing trash collected from various sources and determining life-style choices people make. They see that reducing the amount of waste we generate is helpful to the the environment.
Lesson Plan
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WATTS UP?

For Teachers 2nd
Second graders research the Internet as they classify different forms of energy, investigate electrical energy and how to conserve energy.
Lesson Plan
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Energy Transfer

For Teachers 2nd - 5th
Students investigate the properties of heated air. They make predictions about what they think makes the wind blow on a worksheet, and conduct two experiments to demonstrate the properties of heated air. Students heat a bottle until a...
Lesson Plan
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Sunspots: Correlating Sunspots to Active Regions

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students investigate sunspots. They use solar imaging from satellite instruments which are currently circling the sun. Students compare images from the satellites and determine the existence of a correlation between the two types of...
Lesson Plan
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Different Types of Orange Juice Contain the Same Amounts of Vitamin C?

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Learners measure and compare the amount of vitamin C in orange juice samples. They discover the effects of different factors on the concentration of vitamin C. They participate in an experiment to test the orange juice.
Lesson Plan
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Monitor Marine Migrants

For Teachers 4th - 12th
Students, in groups, track the seasonal journey of a species, such as a shorebird, sea turtle, or marine mammal, using various sources of migration data