National Wildlife Federation
Massive Migrations
Turn your students into flocks of migratory birds for this fun lesson on animal migration. Prior to the activity, the teacher creates four different migration routes in the classroom or any available open space, labeling nesting...
Illustrative Mathematics
Equality Number Sentences
Understanding the concept of equality is fundamental to the success of young mathematicians. To explore this basic idea, children compare the dots arranged in pairs of rectangles in order to determine whether or not they contain an equal...
National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network
Is Measuring an Art or a Science?
Not only do future engineers learn the difference between accuracy and precision, they also get some hands-on experience using different measuring tools.
IPDAE
Themes in Short Stories
"What is the theme of this story?" The very question can spark fear in the minds of readers and incinerate confidence. Here you will discover an exercise that shows how writers use the tools of setting, plot, conflict, and...
Federal Reserve Bank
Worth!
Before loaning a friend money, what factors would you consider and why would you lend it? Your young economists will face questions like these in a lesson on banking, profit, risk, and reward, which includes the reading of the book...
University of Arizona
Yoruba Legends: Southern Nigeria
Explore legends and storytelling with your learners. After listening to some legends, pupils work collaboratively and then individually to come up with original legends about animals.
Curated OER
Using Random Sampling to Draw Inferences
Emerging statisticians develop the ability to make inferences from sample data while also working on proportional relationships in general. Here, young learners examine samples for bias, and then use random samples to make inferences...
Dick Blick Art Materials
Have a Ball!
M.C. Escher's "Hand with Reflecting Globe" and the work of Dick Termes, inspire this activity. Kids check out their reflection in a Christmas ornament or a bubble filter and recreate this distorted image on a vinyl ball.
My Access
“Banning Books” Lesson Plan
To Kill a Mockingbird, Hunger Games, Brave New World. Welcome to Banned Books Week. As part of a study of censorship and book banning, class members investigate censorship, the purposes of censorship, and First Amendment rights,...
Curated OER
Savvy Surfers: Website Evaluation and Media Literacy
Sixth graders strengthen their understanding of what a high quality website is composed of. Learners evaluate three websites for accuracy, credibility, and reliability by completing a chart.
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Identity Lesson 6: Kohlberg's Levels of Moral Reasoning
How does our moral reasoning shape our identity? After a study of Kohlberg's Levels of Moral Reasoning, readers use Kohlberg's theories to analyze the speech, thoughts, and decisions of a character in A Separate Peace. They then create...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Diversity in World Literature Lesson 10: Author's Purpose Seminar
Why did Chinua Achebe write "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" in response to Conrad's novel? As part of a study of Things Fall Apart, class members conduct a socratic seminar focused on Achebe's purpose and...
Center for Learning in Action
Gases
Explore the properties of gases through one activity and two investigations in which super scientists observe the changes gas makes when encountering different conditions.
Center for Learning in Action
Investigating Physical and Chemical Changes
Super scientists visit ten stations to predict, observe, and draw conclusions about the physical and chemical changes that occur when different states of matter—liquid, solid, and gas—are placed under a variety of conditions. To...
Ontario
Animation Programming—Computer Studies
Introduce high schoolers interested in animation programming to fundamental programming concepts so that they can plan and write simple programs.
West Contra Costa Unified School District
Solving Exponential Equations
The power to solve exponential equations lies in the resource. Scholars first learn how to solve exponential equations. An activity matching cards with equations, intermediate steps, and solutions strengthens this skill.
Teach Engineering
Android Acceleration
Prepare to accelerate your Android. Pupils prep for the upcoming activity in this third installment of a four-part series. The lesson plan progresses nicely by first introducing different types of acceleration to the class. The teacher...
Polk Bros Foundation
American Presidents
Emanuel Leutze's painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Alexander Gardner's photograph of Abraham Lincoln. What do these works of art tell us about the character of these American Presidents? After examining the techniques the...
Library of Congress
Industrial Revolution
Could you live without your phone? What about cars, steel, or clothing? Class groups collaborate to produce presentations that argue that either the telephone, the gramophone, the automobile, the textile industry, or the steel industry...
EngageNY
Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem
What does similarity have to do with the Pythagorean Theorem? The activity steps through the proof of the Pythagorean Theorem by using similar triangles. Next, the teacher leads a discussion of the proof and follows it by an animated...
Tech Museum of Innovation
Energy at Play
Get the ball rolling and challenge your class to figure out how to make a ball move. The instruction segment is between two STEM activities devoted to doing just that. The first is simple and involves making a ball move from some force...
EngageNY
Examples of Functions from Geometry
Connect functions to geometry. In the ninth installment of a 12-part module, young mathematicians create functions by investigating situations in geometry. They look at both area and volume of figures to complete a well-rounded lesson.
Chicago Botanic Garden
Are You Bigfoot?
Scholars independently explore several websites to calculate their ecological footprint. Using their new found knowledge, they answer six short-answer questions and take part in a grand conversation with their peers about how our...
Teach Engineering
Biomes and Population Dynamics - Balance Within Natural Systems
How large can a population become? The fifth installment of a nine-part unit teaches young ecologists about limiting factors that determine the carrying capacity of species in the Sonoran Desert. Here is a PowerPoint to help present this...