Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Using Our Senses to Observe
Look around and explore. Little ones use their five senses with some day-to-day activities designed to guide observation and apply STEM strategies. Young scientists learn through comparing/contrasting and...
Institute of Physics
Activities for STEM Clubs
Need some support or ideas of how to entertain middle schoolers or what clubs to bring into your school? Let this excellent 40-page resource guide with links and step-by-step directions on STEM activities guide your decision.
Purdue University
Exploring Whirligigs
What's that silly thing spinning in the wind? It's a whirligig! Explore wonderful windy whirligigs with a STEM-based unit that teaches the science and concepts behind these gigs. Scholars discover how gravity and air resistance...
Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers
Justice for All - Educating Youth for Social Responsibility: Grades 6-8
Teach middle schoolers how to develop healthy relationships with activities and lessons designed to create a kind and inclusive
classroom. Pupils create guidelines to develop a safe and civil learning environment. They learn how to...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Investigating STEM Cluster Careers
Science, technology, engineering, math—there are so many option in STEM! Using the resource, pupils identify and explore STEM career opportunities. They complete a vocabulary activity mat, crossword puzzle, and matching activity to learn...
Science Matters
Formative Assessment #5: Plant
Information from formative assessments is vital to plan for instruction. The 17th in a 21-part series of lessons on plant and animal systems quizzes pupils on their knowledge of the function of plant parts. Given a part of the plant,...
California Department of Education
Possible Careers
Is a STEM career the right choice for me? Lesson four in a six-part career and college readiness series introduces seventh graders to the world of STEM occupations. Individuals use their Holland code results to select, research, and...
Newspaper Association of America
Cereal Bowl Science and Other Investigations with the Newspaper
What do cereal, fog, and space shuttles have to do with newspapers? A collection of science investigations encourage critical thinking using connections to the various parts of the newspaper. Activities range from building origami seed...
Scholastic
STEM Challenges and Activity Sheets 3–5
How can engineers help their communities? Three challenges in the first unit explore why STEM is important to communities and how neighborhoods are engineered to experience those benefits. The second unit prompts groups to plan an...
Scholastic
STEM Challenges and Activity Sheets for Grades 6–8
From 3-D cities to building bridges, young engineers engage in innovative STEM challenges that promote brainstorming and collaboration. Learners take on the roles of different types of engineers as well as become familiar...
Agriculture in the Classroom
"Steer" Toward STEM: Careers in Animal Agriculture
Think like an engineer and an agricultural scientist over the course of 12 lessons in a STEM based unit. Young scientists take on the roles of animal physiologists, animal geneticists, agricultural engineers, animal nutritionists,...
NASA
NASA: Moving Cargo
How does NASA transport people and cargo to planets? The five-lesson unit breaks down the transportation system that scientists use to transport cargo to space. Pairs team up in order to devise a transportation system that will...
National Science Teacher Association
Middle School Sampler: Science
Focus on inquiry-based learning in your science class with a series of activities designed for middle schoolers. A helpful packet samples four different texts, which include activities about predator-prey relationships, Earth's axis...
Virginia Middle School Engineering Education Initiative
Save the Penguins: An Introduction to Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer
Heat things up in your physical science class with this interactive lesson series on thermodynamics. Through a series of class demonstrations and experiments, young scientists learn how heat is transferred through conduction,...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Build and Test a Model Solar House
A learning unit with instructions on how to build a cardboard model house, and explore the effectiveness of a furnace vs. solar heating. The unit is in PDF format.
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Building a Bungee Jump
Students are asked to create a bungee jump that will protect a hard-boiled egg from breaking. A force sensor is needed to measure the push/pull forces on the egg. Data is inserted into force-time graphs. After completing three...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Building a Zip Line
For this interactive, students plan, create, and test a zip line that will transport a hard-boiled egg without breaking it. They will make improvements on their design based on data about its performance. A motion sensor is required in...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Describing Velocity
An interactive module where students record their ideas in response to questions, and read and manipulate graphs and charts while they learn about velocity-time graphs and position-time graphs.
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Dew Point
For this experiment, students work to find the dew point temperature in their classroom, or the temperature at which water would condense. Includes questions for students to respond to online. Requires free registration in order to save...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Earthquakes Around the World
In this interactive, students manipulate a computer model that shows where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have occurred since 1960, to make predictions, collect data and look for patterns. Includes career connection, and a question...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Greenhouse Light and Temperature
An interactive tool where students can create a model of a greenhouse and use a light sensor to measure the amount of light it receives from a lamp at various times of the day. Temperature is also measured. Data is plotted on graphs,...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Protein Partnering and Function
A learning module with built-in interactive features where students can read about the differences between large and small molecules, build protein structures, and test their strength under different conditions. They will review polarity...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
A learning module with built-in interactive features where students can observe how electrons behave. Using a virtual scanning tunneling microscope (STM), they experiment with moving the electrons inside an atom around. The STM has two...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Pendulum
An interactive tool where students can explore how a pendulum works, and how length, mass, angle, and friction affect its motion or period. As the pendulum moves, its motion is shown in an angle-time graph.