Differentiate between temperature and thermal energy. Your class will build a thermometer using simple materials and develop their own scale for measuring temperature. Discuss with your class and consider why engineers need to understand...

Students explore how to read a thermometer and what the instrument does. They practice measuring hot and cold objects and discuss changes in the weather based on temperature.

Stir chocolate drink mix into hot and cold water to see if there is a difference in how quickly it dissolves. Number three in a six-instructional activity unit on dissolving, this installment investigates the effect of temperature. If...

Physical science scholars discover an array of heat sources. They experiment to connect radiation to heat. They begin to understand thermal equilibrium. Then, they test to see if mass affects the rate of temperature change. Choose a few,...

Students create predictions on what they believe happen to reaction rates when temperature is raised. They use hot, cold, and room temperature water for this experiment and observe the differences. They graph their observations and...

Students examine the differences between air temperature and ground temperature.  For this investigative lesson students find NASA data on the Internet and use it to create a graph. 

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

Weather seems unpredictable, but is it really? Learners collect weather data from online interactives and build data displays. They use their displays to identify temperature and precipitation patterns in different areas.

As an anticipatory set, young environmental technicians watch a video about how ocean temperatures seem to be changing along with the global climate. They perform a laboratory demonstration with the purpose of observing what happens to...

Investigate how temperature affects the density of water and stratification that occurs in bodies of water when temperatures vary. Water of differing temperatures is given different colors to see the layers that form. The lesson plan is...

Students examine NASA satellite observations of surface temperature and investigate the seasonal changes of land and water temperature.

Demonstrate how ice floats on water and get the class thinking about why icebergs are so deceiving. Investigators then experiment with mixing water of the same temperature and water of different temperatures. Make sure to explain the...

High schoolers examine the effect of temperature on how often crickets chirp. In groups, they complete the experiment and answer lab discussion questions. They create a graph of temperatures and the amount of chirps and discuss the results.

Students are shown how temperature affects dissolved oxygen and they create a graph showing this relationship. They think about the adaptations of animals to live in different water temperatures. Students test four different water...

You will need a photovoltaic system and monitor at your school in order to obtain all of the data required to thoroughly implement this lesson. Your class monitors daily temperature and insolation amounts over a two week span of time....

Battle of the hemispheres? In the fourth installment of a five-part series, young oceanographers use the NOAA website to collect temperature data from drifters (buoys), one in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern Hemisphere....

Examine how heat can be transferred between systems by reconstructing a diagram on energy flow and solving problems on heat flow and work done.

Warm up to a vacation-finding activity. After choosing a location for a vacation, pupils research the average monthly temperatures for the locality. They create scatter plots of the data and then determine the equations of the best-fit...

No one knows what the future will bring, but it's likely to be warmer than before. Pupils first learn about the NASA GISS ModelE2, a global climate model, and about representative concentration pathways that estimate the global output of...

Young scholars determine the validity of Charles' Law. In this Charles' Law lesson plan, students measure the volumes of a gas at two different temperatures. They determine the volume at a high temperature and predict using Charles' Law...

Young scholars use an on line simulation to produce ammonia using Haber's process. In this Haber's process lesson plan, students use a spreadsheet to manipulate the pressure, temperature and catalysts used in the production of ammonia....

Students obtain remote sensing data to compare and contrast global biomass data with global temperature data.

Students investigate soil temperatures. In this graphing and earth science lesson, students insert temperature probes into different types of soil at varying depths. Students complete a data chart and construct a related graph...

Learners use a thermometer to record temperatures from their homes throughout the city, and then hypothesize reasons for the temperature variations. They use a weather graph worksheet that's imbedded in this instructional activity to...