California Academy of Science
Guess That Spice
From medical treatments to cooking, people have been using herbs and spices for thousands of years. Perform a blind smell test of household herbs and spices to engage students in learning about ancient spice trading. Research the history...
EnLiST
Trap Your Own Insects: What’s in Your Backyard?
Young entomologists construct three types of insect traps—pitfall, pollinator, and panel—before setting their traps out and observing what they caught. They then observe what types of insects the different traps attract.
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What's That Smell?
Learners experiment with different scents (vanilla, peppermint, perfumes etc.) to explore their sense of smell.
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Earthworm Nervous System
Investigate the nervous system of an earthworm! Your class gets into pairs to test, record, and draw conclusions about the reaction earthworms have to different stimuli (sound, light, and smell).
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Hand Sensitivity
Students experiment with the sense of touch. In this tactile lesson, students determine the most sensitive area of the hand. Students experiment by describing objects through touch only. Students compare the amount of sensory data...
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A Tasty Experiment
Students work together to determine if smell is important to being able to recongize food by taste. They try different foods with different textures and hold their nose. They create a graph of their results.
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SAT Editing in Context Practice Test 01
Middle schoolers edit a draft of an essay, correct grammatical mistakes, and edit for unity and coherence. They answer 12 questions in 12 minutes in this SAT practice worksheet.
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Name That Taste
Students analyze taste buds. In this taste lesson plan, students complete an experiment in groups of four people. Students have four cups with a different substance in each cup. One student dips a Q-tip into each cup and tests on another...
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A Sense of Place
Students read "Fish Tale: Falling For a Live One" from The New York Times and discuss the methods and techniques the writer uses to create a strong mental image. Students pick a place in their community they wish to write about and...
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Urban Biology: Can Fish Detect Odors
Students investigate how fish use their sense of smell. In this scientific method lesson, students design and perform an experiment to investigate how fish use their sense of smell. This lesson includes statistical analysis and safety ...
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In Touch with Apples
Students read "How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World", the story of a girl who traveled the world to find the ingredients to make her apple pie. They conduct a series of interdisciplinary activities including testing their senses,...
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Exploring Learned and Innate Behavior
Students explore the differences between learned and innate behavior among humans and monkeys. They complete an assignment and read articles about two studies, which used similar test methods to show that infants and monkeys share an...
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Make Sense of Nature
Students participate in this program that heightens their awareness and curiosity of nature as well as their sense of adventure and exploring new surroundings. They identify and choose an object from nature after exploring it with other...
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Remember to Stop and Smell the Roses: Olfaction and its Relationship to Memory
Students discover that olfaction elicits memory associations. They investigate how olfaction compares to other sensory modalities in the formation of memories. This is a hands-on lab activity guaranteed to build memories in your students!
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Indoor Air Pollutant Sensing LAB: Peppermint Diffusion
Students engage in an experiment for the scientific concept of diffusion of particles. There are instructions for classroom set up prior to conduction of the activity. Students sit in the classroom that is filled with the smell of...
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Ears Here!
Students participate in an interactive video to review the five senses. They perform hands-on activities to test their sense of hearing and play a hearing game from the Internet.
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Action or Linking? - Test Your Knowledge of Linking Verbs
In this grammar worksheet, students learn about using linking verbs in sentence writing. They then use what they read to answer the 12 problems on the worksheet. The answers are on the last page of the packet.
Education Outside
Honey Tasting
Young scientists will be abuzz as they sample and compare the tasty treats produced by Apis Mellifera.
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Household Chemistry
Students use indicator paper to determine if substances are acidic, basic, or neutral. They test for Ph levels in them. They investigate the effect of oxygen on darkening fruit cut and exposed to the air. They observe vitamin C as an...
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Man's Best Friend
Students compare human and dog senses. In this biology lesson, students describe different ways that dogs help humans. They research and create a presentation about a modern dog hero.
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Minerals and Rocks
Students identify and interpret various minerals and discover how to identify and classify them. They identify and discuss how people describe objects and how scientists describe objects. From there, students look at a set of common...
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Crazy Chemistry Lesson Plan
Young scholars study water molecules, cohesion and surface tension. In this molecule cohesion lesson students create chemical reactions that cause a balloon to inflate and another one that results in soap suds.
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Inference Multiple Choice Version 1
In this reading skills activity, students read 8 sets of sentences and make inferences about the given situations. Students should note why their inferences make sense.
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A Rat's Life
Here is a two-page learning exercise on rats and mice. Learners answer nine true/false questions about rats and mice, then compose answers to seven short-answer questions about these two rodents. Finally, they must compose a fictional...