Crafting is fun, it increases eye-hand coordination, and it is a great way to accent any lesson. Celebrate Earth Day by creating scrap fabric flowers for a pop-stick flower garden. Children of all ages will love gluing, cutting, and...

Vocabulary really adds up with magic squares! Using words from Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori, kids line up words and definitions to come up with the same sum across and down the square.

A St. Patrick's Day-themed worksheet invites young leprechauns to match the word with its meaning by writing the corresponding letter in the blank. There are 10 words and definitions that are connected to Ireland. Lastly, pupils are...

Do bigger sails mean that the sailboat goes faster? Middle and high schoolers compare sailboats, and learn that simply calculating sail area is not enough. A slideshow presentation demonstrates how to calculate the Sail...

What would it take to live on the lunar surface? Small groups build model rockets in order to simulate launching a habitat into space and rebuilding it. Divide the class into groups to design and build a model of a lunar habitat. The...

What can I use in space? The three-lesson unit has groups research what man-made or natural resources would be available during space exploration or habitation. Team members think of ways that resources can be reclaimed or reused in...

What do Pascal's law, Archimedes' Principle, and Bernoulli's Principle have to do with fluid mechanics? The included PowerPoint presentation provides the basic definitions and equations associated with the three. A set of homework...

What will it take to explore space? Teams of pupils determine the needs of a lunar outpost and research the required systems. The pupils then learn about the past space exploration vehicles. The third and final lesson challenges project...

What does it take to get stuff to the Moon? Design teams create subsystems for a space transportation system to go to the Moon. The teams study Earth transportation components along with historical space transportation systems to...

Slip sliding away. Groups investigates the two types of friction by running an experiment that allows them to calculate the coefficient of static friction and the coefficient of kinetic friction. The experiment uses a box, a...

Every time a bell rings ... there is lightning in the area. The activity provides directions to build a model of a lightning detection system. Similar to a system designed by Benjamin Franklin, the system uses static...

Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.

Design and build a rover ... then eat it? This activity has groups of two design and build Mars rovers. The teams determine what instruments they want to include with their rover and plan a budget. They calculate the cost of the body of...

Class members are challenged to design a device that will move a circus elephant into a train car. Groups brainstorm ideas that use simple machines to load the elephant. They then choose one of their ideas, sketch a plan, and present it...

Which pulley system will give us a whale of a good time? Teams compare the theoretical and actual mechanical advantages of different pulley systems. They then form a recommendation for how to move a whale from an aquarium back to the ocean.

Class members work in pairs to build a catapult to launch a grape a given distance. The catapult project, a compound machine, reinforces pupils' understanding of simple machines.

Let's see how complicated we can make this simple task. The last activity associated with a 10-part series has groups design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. Teams determine a simple task to accomplish and use the engineering design...

Class members create their own social networks by collecting signatures before graphing the interactions with their fellow classmates. The degree distribution of the simulated social network is determined by calculating the degree of...

Here is a lesson that offers a great hybrid of forming new skills and using current knowledge to come up with a plan. The class brainstorms information they would need to know or already know about hybrid vehicles. They then group...

Focus on the conservation of energy, specifically looking at gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy, with a lecture that involves having friends throw light objects at each other to determine which has more kinetic energy and...

Skate through a simulation on energy with an a activity that uses a computer simulation of a skater to reinforce the concept of conservation of energy. The resource guides pupils through scenarios using the computer simulation to...

Roll with your class into the idea of conservation of energy. Pupils use a roller coaster track to collect data to reinforce the concept of conservation of energy and the influence of friction. Class members then create a graph from...

Spring into elastic potential energy with a lesson that provides background information on determining the elastic potential energy of springs and other elastic materials. General energy equations emphasize the conservation of...

Let your class bounce to examine the concept elastic potential energy. Individuals bounce on a pogo stick in order to calculate its elastic potential energy. Groups then compare the elastic potential energy to the gravitational...