Ron Toomer, a famous roller coaster designer, suffered from motion sickness. Pupils design their own roller coasters, learning about potential and kinetic energy in the process. Labs focus on the importance of drop height, energy...

Students identify the letters of the alphabet. In this letters lesson, students use an iPad to play games, draw pictures, and listen to videos about the alphabet. They use pipe cleaners to create their name.

Fourth graders experiment to determine how overpopulation effects ecosystems specifically plants. In this ecosystem lesson, 4th graders conduct an ecosystems experiment after listening to Claire Daniel's, Ecosystems. They watch a video,...

Students create a silhouette by directing light at a person. They change the light, distance from the person and angle to make the shadows different. They are to describe the relationship between the light source and the object.

Students use Scion Image to estimate the proportion of space images. In this proportion lesson, students investigate the online site of Image of the Orbitor and relate the dimensions and sizes to known sizes.

Young scholars explore tessellations. In this shapes and geometry lesson, students describe the attributes of many of the shapes displayed on an Elmo. Young scholars create examples of tessellations using pattern blocks.

Hang a soda can from a string and watch it spin by the force created by water streaming out of slanted holes. This plan provides background information, detailed materials and procedures, discussion questions, a lab worksheet, and...

Children enjoy playing with silly putty, but it provides more than just fun. Young scientists make their own silly putty using different recipes. After a bit of fun, they test and graph the viscosity of each.

Define and identify the three basic forms of symmetry translation, rotation, and glides with your class. They cut out and arrange paper pattern blocks to illustrate symmetry, create a Cartesian graph, and design a rug with a symmetrical...

What better way to make predictions about future weather and climate patterns than with actual climate data from the past? Young climatologists analyze data from 400,000 to 10,000 years ago to determine if climate has changed over...

Middle schoolers redesign their school to make it more energy efficient, and create a model of their design. Learners get together in groups of 5, and they take on the task of making their school more energy efficient. To do this, they...

Trace the links between a variety of math concepts in this far-reaching unit. Ideas that seem very different on the outset (like the distance formula and rigid transformations) come together in very natural and logical ways. This...

How does a plant grow from a seed? Observe the process with a clever idea from the PBS television show ZOOM. Watch the video, then have your young botanists create their own germinators. The lesson described here is for visually impaired...

Sew up your unit on operations with decimals using this assessment task. Young mathematicians use given rules to determine the amount of fabric they need to sew a pair of pants. They must also fill in a partially complete bill for...

Using a teacher-built wind tunnel constructed from a paper concrete tube form, a fan, and a balance, individuals determine the amount of drag their rocket design will experience in flight. Pupils make modifications to increase the...

Put the better archer in a box. The performance task has pupils compare the performance of two archers using box-and-whisker plots. The resource includes sample responses that are useful in comparing individuals' work to others.

Stick this resource in the "Use" column. In the second installment of a six-part series, learners use glue sticks to demonstrate forces. Using glue sticks, instructors can demonstrate tension, compression, and torsion.

Just what does it take to show two rhombuses are similar? The assessment task asks pupils to develop an argument to show that given quadrilaterals are rhombuses. Class members also use their knowledge of similar triangles to show two...

If a car gets heavier, it goes farther? By running an activity several times, teams experience Newton's Second Law of Motion. The teams vary the amount of weight they catapult off a wooden block car and record the distance the...

What does viscosity have to do with splatter? An activity shows that the viscosity of a substance is inversely proportional to the distance of its splatter. Learners conduct the experiment by collecting data, graphing, and analyzing...

Trying to understand the vastness of outer space can be quite a challenge for young scientists. Help put things in perspective with this cross-curricular activity as students work in pairs creating scaled models of...

Time to come clean! Scholars continue preparing the shampoo they created in the previous two lessons. The purpose of this stage is to calculate the perfect amount of additive to make the shampoo lather. 

High schoolers explore the formulas for volume of three-dimensional objects. They participate in various activities involving ice cream, ice cream cones, small candies, and gum balls, recording their calculations on a lab sheet.

Off they go — launching rockets is fun. The lesson plan contains templates to build paper rockets that can be launched from a PVC pipe launcher. Individuals or groups build the rockets and determine the shapes for their fins. Included...