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How Does Your Soil Stack Up?
Students examine the soil in their local area and create a soil profile. They record observations in the field and the classroom. They create their own display of the soil profile as well.
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Layering the Soil
Students study and classify soil. In this soil science lesson, students classify soil by texture and size and study soil horizons. Students label the soil types with their specific soil horizon and learn about permafrost. Students...
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Edible Soil
Students model the soils layers using Oreo's. In this lesson plan students use their favorite food items to create a model of soil layers. A discovery lesson plan from a youth camp is adapted for classroom modeling and discussion of...
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Edible Soils
Students create soil profiles, including rock, clay, silt, sand, and humus, in clear plastic cups out of edible materials.
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Keep it Active
Learners explore the active layer above permafrost and investigate various factors on the insulation value of the active layer. In this energy transfer lesson, students conduct and experiment to determine the effects of snow cover,...
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Getting to Know Soil
Students make predictions and analyze soil. In this soil properties lesson, students make predictions about soil properties for various soil samples. Students examine the types of soils and record their observations. Students analyze...
Chymist
Earth Science
Explore the consistency of the earth's layers and soil through modeling. By conducting an engaging experiment, learners develop a model for the earth's layers and a soil profile using edible materials. Each material is chosen based on...
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Water Filtration
As an example of nature's water filtering system, young ecologists conduct an experiment in the lab. They construct a funnel out of a plastic bottle, fill it with specified layers of materials that simulate layers of soil, then run muddy...
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What Are the Layers of the Rain Forest?
Students investigate the different levels of the rain forest by comparing it to an apartment. In this ecology lesson, students practice using forest related vocabulary words and complete a vocabulary data sheet. Students...
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The Nitrogen Cycle
Young scholars design and create a compost pile in order to study the Nitrogen Cycle. They then use the scientific method to determine if plants grow better when they add organic matter from their compost pile to the plant's soil.
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Moon: NC Summer Tour Lesson 2007
Students investigate craters and marea. In this crater and marea lesson, students conduct an experiment to create craters. Students participate in a dance activity.
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Tropical Rainforests
Students create their own rainforest environment. This tropical rainforest lesson, introduces where rainforests are located, their real world connections, and their structural make up. It includes further resources online.
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Marine & Aquatic Habitats Activities - Terrestrial Forests vs. Kelp Forests
Students discuss concept and specificity of habitats, both marine and terrestrial, list similarities and differences in the habitats of a kelp forest and a terrestrial forest, compare types of organisms that occupy corresponding types of...
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Shoe Box Archaeology
Students assemble a shoe box following a layered pattern alternating between soil and artifacts. The layers of artifacts begin with the grandparents and end with the student's own personal possessions.
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Let's Make a Compost Cake
Learners create a compost cake. In this gardening and decomposition science lesson plan, students review and describe the "nutrient cycle." Learners create a compost pile, measure and record the dimensions and temperature of the pile,...
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Probing Below the Surface of Mars
Students simulate the search for water in Mars using simple apparatus. For this space science lesson, students explain how soil temperature affects the cooling of probes. They graph the data collected from the simulation.
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Disposing Garbage
Young scholars explore environmental cleanliness by completing a worksheet in class. In this waste management lesson, students identify the technological advances in society and how they increase waste production our planet is unable to...
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Making Sedimentary Rocks
Learners make models of sedimentary rock layers to explain how rocks form layers and represent ancient environments. Layers of sediment and fossils are added together to simulate the environment and connections to sedimentary rocks are...
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Making a Cave
Students discuss caves. In this science lesson, students experiment with how dissolution, a chemical weathering process, leads to the formation of caves. Once the cave is finsihed students draw a picture or describe in writing what it...
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The Water Cycle
Students develop a better understanding of the need to conserve our renewable resources. In this water cycle lesson students take notes, complete a guide sheet and illustrate the water cycle.
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Making a Terrarium
Students construct and maintain model of natural habitat, suggest improvements to the model of the natural habitat to make it more realistic and habitable, and demonstrate careful observation and recording of how animals survive in their...
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Compost and Composting Experiments
Students investigate the composting process through a variety of experiments. In this ecology lesson, students discuss the benefits of composting. They examine how compost affect plant growth.
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Sunlight and Warm Air
Students discuss radiant energy from the sun, performing a simple experiment with sun glasses and bright light to demonstrate the concept. Students further participate in simple in-class experiments to demonstrate: air density as it...
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The Physical Environment
Fourth graders use damp sand, a baking pan, and water to simulate erosion. In this erosion lesson plan, 4th graders participate in a simulation to show what moving water does to land.