The scientific issue of carbon-14 dating and exponential decay gets a statistics-based treatment in this problem. The class starts with a basic investigation of carbon content, but then branches out to questions of accuracy and...

Make a splash with a math skills resource! Starring characters from the children's story Mystery of the Muddled Marsh, several worksheets create interdisciplinary connections between science, language arts, and math. They...

They're going to be there with their family. Class members practice using and identifying the correct use of they're, there, and their with a skills practice worksheet. The top half of the worksheet gives brief background information on...

Here's a collection of unit plans for middle school musicians. Topics include the mbira, opera, rhythm and culture, music in Africa, music in the movies, music theory and notation, blues and jazz, and the ocarina. Definitely worth a look.

Looking for a valuable resource on the spread of infectious diseases? Here is a lesson plan in which pupils simulate the spread of diseases and learn about how to prevent them from spreading. Class members read case studies about...

Sometimes explaining an argument can lead to confusion and miscommunication. Narrow down the details in written arguments with a group activity in which learners pretend to be aliens from another planet, struggling to understand each...

Show learners how to apply rational equations to the real world. Learners solve problems such as those involving averages and dilution. They write equations to model the situation and then solve them to answer the question —...

Increase understanding of the algebraic properties and their importance. Scholars justify their steps as they simplify expressions and solve equations. They formalize their work as two-column proof.

Class members use an air quality monitor to measure the amount of gas-phase pollutants emitted by different sources. Groups choose three different sources and make predictions about what the monitors will detect. Teams then expose...

What is a community? Find out with a lesson that sheds light onto the different types of communities—school, local, and global. Scholars read informational text detailing the life of a young girl from Cape Verde and take part in a...

Be shore to use this drifter resource. The third installment of a five-part series has learners using the NOAA's Adopt-a-Drifter website to track to movement of a drifter (buoy) in the ocean. Graphing the collected data on a map allows...

Time to study the most sensible function — rational functions! The seven-lesson unit develops the concept of a rational function through a connection to rational numbers and fractions. Scholars graph functions, solve equations, and...

Looking at London's population from 1801–1961 in 20 year increments, high school mathematicians determine if the data can be modeled by a given logistic growth equation. They explain their thinking and determine the values of each...

Test your knowledge of linear functions and models. The last installment of a 16-part module is an end-of-module assessment task. Pupils solve multi-part problems on bivariate data based on real-world situations to review concepts from...

Help overcome challenges in eating pizza. Scholars work in groups to design a device that assists a physically handicapped person eat pizza. They build a prototype of such a device to test their designs before building. To...

Don't desert a resource on the desert! Scholars work in groups to build on their ideas from the previous lesson to design a sustainable guest village in the Saguaro National Park. Each group produces a PowerPoint presentation to share...

See how changes in initial populations and parameters affect a biological community. Individuals use a special software program to simulate a desert community with five species. They adjust initial populations to see how the community...

Apply robotics to connect physical properties to chemical properties. Future engineers use robots to determine the melting points of various fats and oils. The robots can do this by measuring the translucency of the fats as they heat up.

Take steps into sequences. An 11-lesson unit builds upon pupils' previous understanding of writing expressions to develop the idea of sequences. The resource explores both arithmetic and geometric sequences using recursive and explicit...

Take a "conservative" approach to planning your next unit on mass and matter! What better way to answer "But where did the gas go?" than with a lab designed to promote good report writing, research skills, and detailed observation....

Spin through the trigonometric functions. Scholars determine the angle of rotation a snowboarding snowman makes at various distances in his jump. The class members then calculate the values of trigonometric functions for those angles.

Small groups create skits that illustrate the different perspectives of those involved in the transitioning of Santa Rose island from private ownership to National Park.

Polar opposites might not work together—but polar coordinates do! The interactive provides learners the opportunity to graph trigonometric and algebraic functions using polar coordinates. The program takes either individual data points...

Who is more trustworthy when it comes to marijuana: a high school student, or The National Institute on Drug Abuse? Sources matter when reading informational text. Help teenagers discern which facts are true with an activity that focuses...