What a model community would look like? Get your kids talking with an activity that allows them to create their own town. After printing out a "fold out village," groups of young scholars use a variety of resources to help them build an...

The Mars Global Surveyor spent two years creating a mineral map of the planet Mars using thermal emission spectrometry. To help young astronomers understand this remote sensing instrument, have them simulate how data is collected and...

Geology geniuses analyze sediment samples with a hand lens and sort according to physical characteristics. They also learn about the processes of cementation, compaction, and lithification within the rock cycle. The lesson plan is...

Using GPS units, small groups participate in a scavenger hunt to find an object that you have hidden. They use coordinates for stopping points along a pre-planned path to get to the final cache. This is a terrific activity to include in...

Explore the concept of evolution and cell biology; your class can work in groups to use the internet to view websites on evolution, take a quiz, and complete a lab activity.

Open learners' eyes to the challenge of finding safe drinking water – something we often take for granted in our country. The PowerPoint presentation includes images, graphs, diagrams, and even a video to stimulate discussion on how we...

Build and design to rock and roll. Pairs research building design in earthquake areas and use computer simulations to see the effects of earthquakes on buildings,. They then sketch and explain a building design that would withstand...

Change is coming — but how much? Geology pupils discover the transformation of metamorphic rock using a well-rounded interactive. Topics include the effects of pressure and temperature on metamorphic rock, how time factors into the...

Pupils explore the amount of water people use in agriculture and for personal use. They compare water usage for various crops to that of raising animals before considering solutions for increased access to safe drinking water worldwide....

There are patterns in nearly everything — even earthquakes. Pairs research current earthquakes to see if there are any patterns. They determine the mean, median, and mode of the earthquake data, along with the maximum and...

Students study plots and use a Live Access Server to generate plots.  In this temperature lesson students examine the process of incoming and outgoing radiation. 

It's time to roll up those sleeves and get a little dirty in the second lesson of this series on the science of food. Investigate where plants and animals get the minerals they need to live in this two-part exploration of soil. First,...

Here's a great geology lesson for 3rd graders on weathering and erosion of soil. After a class discussion on how nature can "move a mountain," learners take a look at how a modern phenoma called acid rain can also cause weathering and...

Students explore how different materials (sand, gravel, lava rock) with different water contents on different slopes result in landslides of different severity. They measure the severity by how far the landslide debris extends into model...

In this internet research learning exercise, students use the internet to answer ten questions. Six of the questions are multiple choice, four are short answer questions.

Middle or high school volcanologists watch the 1997 film, Dante's Peak. They make observations as they watch and then write a movie review, focusing on what was accurately represented. They also point out what facts were stretched by...

Collaborative earth science groups create a working model of a watershed. Once it has been developed, you come along and introduce a change in land use, impacting the quality of water throughout their watershed. Model making is an...

To complete homework or not to complete homework ... that is the question. Decide whether it makes a difference on finals by doing homework. Individuals create a scatter plot and find a line of best fit for data on the percent of...

Clay's as good a material as any to build a boat, right? An introductory lesson sets the stage for two activities associated with buoyancy. The first involves building boats out of clay, while the second uses these boats to measure the...

Students are introduced to Sea Floor Spreading and how it provides evidence for Hess's and Deitz's theory of Continental Drift. They use paleomagnetic data to calculate the rate of Sea Floor Spreading.

Here is a geology activity which invites learners to explore a variety of rocks. They find rocks in the schoolyard and classify them according to size, color, and weight, then read the book Everybody Needs a Rock. Good activity!

Fifteen terms pertaining to speciation, extinction, and gene flow are to be matched to their definitions. This simple, easy-to-read worksheet can be used as a pop quiz for your biology learners when studying natural selection principles...

Your geology class practices taking core samples of a potato to examine the stratigraphy. This is a terrific modeling lesson that helps youngsters visualize strata that cannot be seen from the surface of the ground. The directions...

Do all languages have a common ancestor? Although no one yet knows the answer to that big question, the narrator of this short, animated video explains how linguists use migration patterns, geological features, and word clues to...