Curated OER
Biotic Factors
Students identify individual organism, a species, and a population within the study community. They identify biotic factors at the site and attempt to characterize the site's species diversity.
Curated OER
Polar Food Web Comparison
Seventh graders practice the evaluation component of the scientific method while comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences of the food chains and webs of polar animal life. They study about classification and ecology...
Curated OER
Catch as Catch Can
Students investigate insects. In this insect analysis lesson, students catch insects using nets they make. They identify the insects they catch and create a chart to show the numbers and varieties. This lesson includes a vocabulary list...
Gourmet Curriculum Press
Author's Purpose
Who knew determining author's purpose could be turned into a game? Four teams compete to correctly identify the author's purpose for writing a series of passages.
Curated OER
All in the Family: Calculating Cousins
Students view pictures of distant "cousins" to humans. They place them in order by their distance from humans. Students receive a packet of six pages featuring graphics and a cousins summary page. They work in groups to complete 5 cousin...
Curated OER
Project Based Learning
What is Project-Based learning? Find out with a great informaitonal article that includeds multiple web and lesson links. Positive aspects of investigative and project based learning are some highlights you'll read about.
University of Kentucky
The Great Spider Debate
Poor, misunderstood spiders! They are feared, disrespected, and detested by many people, yet they do so many positive things. A great addition to any insect unit, learn about some of the more common spiders, while hopefully dispelling...
Montana Natural History Center
Studying Grassland Ecosystems
At first glance, grassland ecosystems might seem dull and uninteresting, but once you start to explore it's amazing the things you'll find! Through this series of engaging lessons, activities, and experiments, elementary students examine...
Virginia Department of Education
Adaptation and Evolution
Um may be the atomic symbol for confusion, but it won't be needed in this lesson. Scholars rotate through seven stations completing experiments, hands-on activities, writing exercises, and analysis. Stations include material on...
Curated OER
Supermarkets, Sustenance and Sustainability
Students investigate jungles and the people who depend upon them. In this sustainability lesson, students research wild life conservation and discover the importance of a jungle to Amazonian people. Students create a group...
Curated OER
Bat Ecology
Students, through hands on games and activities, discover how bats live and how bats benefit ecosystems. They play a game designed to show them how echolocation works and another to show how mother bats locate their young through their...
Curated OER
Amphibians Internet Activity
In this amphibians worksheet, students click on the links in the questions about amphibians to find the answers to the questions and then come back and answer the questions. Students answer 10 questions total.
Curated OER
Frog Dissection
Students explore the anatomy of frogs. They complete a frog dissection to complete an accompanying worksheet which includes questions, diagrams and pictures.
Curated OER
Biodiversity Study -- A Unit Study
Students sample a site with low human impact, one with moderate human impact, and a third with high human impact. Students chart the data for each site and then compare the sites and discuss.
Curated OER
Ecology
Students explore, experience and experiment identifying the human impact on the environment of vegetative differences within the same biome. They assess what causes deserts, rain forests, savannahs, tundras and saguaros and how these...
Curated OER
A Natural Connection to the Azores
Students use primary sources to examine whaling voyages, biology, and geography. In this geography lesson, students analyze ship logs and plot locations of animals and determine routes using latitude and longitude.
Curated OER
City Animals
Students, in groups, conduct research, including interviews of people in various animal related occupations, to identify and describe how animal populations of cities have changed over time, to outline the benefits and problems...
Curated OER
Are You One of Us?
Students compare and contrast insects and arthropods, identifying characteristics of each. In groups, they sort pictures of arthropods into the five different classes of arthropods. They also sort pictures into insect and non-insect piles.
Curated OER
A Pressing Project
Young scholars create a collection of pressed plants. In this plant lesson, students use newspaper, plywood, and a rubberband to press plants they previously collected.
Curated OER
A Journey with a Scientist
Students work in groups as they read chapters of Charles Darwin's, Voyage of the Beagle. They take notes on the chapter and in their group make a timeline of the chapter. They tape the timelines together in order to depict the entire...
Curated OER
Termite Trail Marking Behavior
Students examine termites and their trail-marking behaviors. They draw lines on paper with various ink pens and experiment to see which types of ink the termites follow--or which inks do and do not elicit trail marking behavior.
Curated OER
Zoology Word Search Puzzle
In this science worksheet, middle schoolers look for the words that are related to the concept of zoology that is reviewed in the sheet. They also acquire new vocabulary.
Curated OER
Crazy Critters
Eighth graders visit a local park to collect insects. They record the habitats, identify the insect and write a report including the kingdom, phylum, class, and order.
Curated OER
DNA the Easy Way (and "Gram Stain" Without the Mess)
Pupils visualize DNA from cells and explain the basis and importance of the Gram-stain reaction and to perform the KOH test equivalent.