Curated OER
Cartoons for the Classroom: Recession Puts our Patients to the Test
Cartoons for the classroom has put out another great worksheet intended to get upper graders thinking. They analyze a political cartoon regarding economic recovery and President Obama. Three great discussion questions and a web link make...
Curated OER
Magnetism
A wonderfully rich presentation teaches about magnets and magnetism. Each slide is packed with interesting information on the discovery, history, physics, and uses for magnets. Good photographs, and an emphasis on vocabulary are part of...
K12 Reader
Identifying Adverbs IV
What a mess! Read about Lilly-Ann's birthday cupcake surprise and work on grammar skills at the same time. Four lengthy paragraphs provide kids with many opportunities to find and circle adverbs. They note the ways that adverbs come in...
Curated OER
To Dorm or Not To Dorm
For some of our students, college is right around the corner. Provide a bit of thoughtful information to help them (and their families) decide if dorm life is right for them. Included here are a list of pros and cons for living both on...
Curated OER
Pizza Sticks
Kids won't just follow a recipe to increase their cooking ability, they'll use it to locate information in a text. They read the simple recipe, then use information from the recipe to fill in the blanks in a story that shows one person...
Perkins School for the Blind
Design and Problem Solving
What if you had a design problem you wanted to solve, but were unable to draw because you were unable to see? Teach your learners with visual impairments that they can use Wikki Stix®, a braille ruler, Legos®, and Constructo Straws to...
Curated OER
Mealworms
Crawl into the world of the darkling beetle with this scientific investigation. Watch as the insects move through the larval, pupal, and adult stages of life, recording observations along the way. Discuss the necessities of life as young...
Weebly
Definitions of Conduction, Convection, and Radiation
There's quite a bit in this physical science packet. First, how is heat transferred? Learners read a brief explanation of conduction, convection, and radiation before identifying common occurrences (with pictures) as one of the three....
Curated OER
Bringing Household Items to Life
Use folk tales as inspiration for learning about and using personification in creative writing. Learners brainstorm together in order to practice personification before writing their own poems or paragraphs about a household object.
NASA
The Evidence is “Clear”!
Do you think you know better? Become a scientist and prove it. Scholars review the evidence for two different theories of the origins of the universe. They notice the empirical observations as well as the inferences to determine which is...
Exploratorium
Salty Pits
Yuck, does my deodorant kill that? To test whether deodorant is anti-bacterial, class members use petri dishes to grow control bacteria and bacteria from sweat, and then compare them to see if deodorant effects the growth.
Teach Engineering
Package Those Foods!
Designing the right package — it's more than a pretty picture. Challenge small groups to design a food package. They must consider the type of food they are packaging and the package's ability to control the physical and chemical changes...
Polar Trec
Global Snow Cover Changes
Snow is actually translucent, reflecting light off its surface which creates its white appearance. Pairs or individuals access the given website and answer questions about snow cover. They analyze graphs and charts, examine data, and...
K5 Learning
Space Based Astronomy
How much astronomy can you study with the naked eye? Learn more about the ways scientists explore the galaxy with a short reading passage and set of short-answer questions.
Santa Monica College
Flame Tests of Metal Cations
Scientists used flame tests to identify elements long before the invention of emission spectroscopy. Young chemists observe a flame test of five metal cations in the fourth lesson of an 11-part series. Individuals then work...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nuclear Synthesis
Start this lesson with a bang! The eighth in a 13-part series of lessons explains the origin of elements beginning with the Big Bang Theory. The reading describes the formation of elements hydrogen through uranium.
Cornell University
LEDs Rainbow Connection
View LED lights through the eyes of a scientist. Young scholars learn to view light as a wave frequency and connect various frequencies to different colors on the light spectrum. A lab activity asks groups to measure the frequency of...
NOAA
The Oceanographic Yo-yo
How does chemistry help deep-sea explorers? Part four of a five-part series of lessons from aboard the Okeanos Explorer introduces middle school scientists to technologies used in ocean exploration. Groups work together to analyze data...
Cornell University
Math Is Malleable?
Learn about polymers while playing with shrinky dinks. Young scholars create a shrinky dink design, bake it, and then record the area, volume, and thickness over time. They model the data using a graph and highlight the key features of...
Colorado State University
What Is Beyond the Rainbow?
Help your classes see what they cannot see. Using different eyewear, scholars experience different light spectrums. Learners may be surprised by how the world looks with infrared light, thermal imaging, and ultraviolet light.
Saddleback College
The Wonder of Words
If your language arts students think etymology isn't relevant to their everyday lives, show them a presentation that will prove them wrong! The slideshow provides explanation about various words, roots, and suffixes that have adapted in...
Glynn County School System
Cosmology
The past, the present, and the future ... there's so much to discover about the galaxy. Scholars learn about the creation of the universe, its current structure, and how it is changing. The PowerPoint presentation begins with a...
American Museum of Natural History
What Do You Know About the Universe?
The universe is full of a mystic matter people cannot see. Pupils respond to 10 questions about the stuff in the universe. Most of the questions involve the big bang theory and dark matter. Learners find out how astronomers have found...
Curated OER
Soil Porosity, Moisture Content, pH, and Density
This lab activity does not have to be done with AP environmental scientists. It can also be done with middle to high school earth scientists. The procedures aren't complex. Learners determine the density of dry and wet sand in order to...