Plants need food to survive, just like any other living organism. Young biologists analyze an experiment performed in 1610 by Jan van Helmont to determine if plant nutrition is obtained through the soil. First, lab groups work together...

Is everything really connected? Take your class on a walk outside, where they will make observations and write them down on a worksheet. Once they are back in the classroom, learners will work to determine if and how things like birds,...

Meant to be a pre-field trip lesson, this can also serve as a cute and simple activity to use when your little ones are learning about evaporation or surface area. The children cut tiny t-shirts out of paper towel material, wet them, and...

Explore the world's endangered species with a presentation and bingo game activity. After viewing a presentation about the meaning of endangered species as it relates to specific animals, kids play a game of bingo with cards that...

One hundred metric tons of CO2 can accumulate in one acre of forest over time—that's a lot of carbon! In the activity, groups of middle school learners determine what makes forests important. They then solidify the concept by using a...

How can organisms light up in water? Bioluminescence is light produced in a chemical reaction that can occur in an organism's body. First, learners determine what happens to light/color as you move into the deep ocean. In groups, they...

The propellant needed for space explorations runs in the thousands, while paying to get the craft into orbit costs millions! In the second installment of three, two activities explore laws of conservation of energy and momentum. Using...

You can lower your ecological footprint by recycling! Lesson four in this series of five has individuals, through the use of a computer, calculate their ecological footprints. Through discussions and analysis they determine how many...

How do oceanographers make maps under water? Junior explorers discover the technologies and processes involved in creating bathymetric maps in part three of a five-part series designed for fifth- and sixth-grade pupils. The...

How do you create a map of the ocean floor without getting wet? Middle school oceanographers discover the process of bathymetric mapping in the third installment in a five-part series of lessons designed for seventh and eighth graders....

All sodium carbonate may not have the same amount of carbonate, but it should have the same percent. Learners write and balance an equation to predict the chemical reaction between sodium carbonate and zinc acetate. Through the lab...

Model hardness testing with a self-designed hardness test. Young scholars rate the hardness of different types of aspirin using the Vicker's Hardness scale. They then relate hardness to the solubility of each aspirin tablet.

What does the sun mean to you? Learners have many different interests that may have connections to the sun. Whether its solar radiation, solar flares, or solar storms, there are connections to daily interests that may surprise your...

What can we learn from the data? Young scholars analyze actual solar data to answer specific questions. The activity presents an opportunity for an open-ended investigation of the data to conclude a five-part series on solar winds.

Primo Levi wrote a collection of short stories comparing his life from Italy to Auschwitz to elements in the periodic table. Pupils read an excerpt from his book and research the characteristics of various elements. Then, they make a...

Students plot earthquakes on a map. In this lesson on earthquakes, students will explore recent earthquake activity in California and Nevada. Students will plot fault lines and earthquake occurrences on a map.

What fishing method is the most sustainable? Find out through a fun, but meaningful game in which your little fishermen use different techniques to see what they catch. After the fishing activity is over, there are several discussion...

Poetry is a wonderful way to explore language, express topical understanding, and incite creative thinking. After a trip to the local natural history museum (or zoo), learners write an acrostic or a cinquain poem describing one of their...

Learning about the rainforest can be more fun than you think. The class discusses vocabulary-in-context as they cut cardboard boxes, destined to become part of a rainforest model. Small groups of children color, cut, and construct...

Here is a game intended for use at home that could easily be adapted to the school environment. The class reads an informational story about emperor penguins and then they watch a clip from the film, March of the Penguins. They focus on...

Different animals live in different habitats, and each animal has specifically adaptive traits that make them tailor-made for their environments. This is true on land and in the ocean. Little ones examine how various marine animals have...

Although the lesson is specifically about the San Francisco Bay area, it's good enough to be adapted to any local region. Children research what the landscape in San Francisco was like prior to settlement, they consider the types of...

How many rainforests are there, where are they, and do global factors effect their locations? These are great questions that have great answers. Children in grades four through eight use several different maps to determine why...

There are so many wonderful parts to an animal: fur, antlers, tails, and legs, to name a few. A large diagram of an antelope is used to start a matching game, where the class matches body parts made of the same material. They discuss...