What's It Worth? Thinking About Weights and Measures

A reading precedes the activity in order to familiarize learners with just how small a nanometer is. Then, small groups measure classroom objects and convert units into nanometers. The publisher doesn't mention it, but the reading...

Determining whether or not something is living can be more difficult than it seems. Put your young scientists to work defining their own criteria to identify life, then work with three samples to see if they are alive or not. 

How is fixing a flat tire like reading and writing? By thinking about each activity properly - identifying the problem and purpose, gathering information, and making inferences - you can exercise your thinking skills equally. This...

Turn a nighttime toe stubbing into an informative discussion about the properties of matter. An intriguing physical science video encourages learners to use their knowledge of matter and mass to identify a mystery object based on...

Kids age 13 and older are asked to read the provided Times article and background information in order to construct a thoughtful blog response to Obama's first Oval Office speech. They work to address each of the related critical...

Climate change is in the news more than ever these days, and it will increasingly continue to be a hot topic in the future. Watch a video that proposes different ways people can begin to think about climate change in order to address...

You don't need a scale to determine weight. This activity provides a way to use the concepts of air pressure and surface area to determine the weight of a vehicle by calculating the amount of weight each tire supports.

Too much material will weigh you down. The sixth segment in a series of 22 highlights how weight affects a plane. Pupils learn that engineers take the properties of materials, including weight, when designing something. 

What goes up must come down, but there is more to the phenomenon than meets the eye! As it turns out, any two objects attract to each other. The formula for Newton's law of universal gravitation is introduced in the explanation. A touch...

How have values changed? How does our society influence our choices? Two great questions lead this discussion about food production, history, and cause-and-effect relationships. Pupils analyze a limestone relief from Assyria, research...