World Wildlife Fund
Bar Charts & Pie Charts
Learn about life in the Arctic while practicing how to graph and interpret data with this interdisciplinary lesson plan. Starting with a whole group data-gathering exercise, students are then given a worksheet on which they analyze and...
PBS
Data Plots of Exoplanet Orbital Properties
Scientists discovered the first exoplanet in 1995 and by early 2018, they confirmed the existence of more than 3,700—that's a lot of data! As part of the PBS 9-12 Space series, scholars interpret data about exoplanets. They compare...
ARKive
Handling Data: African Animal Maths
Handling and processing data is a big part of what real scientists do. Provide a way for your learners to explore graphs and data related to the animals that live on the African savannah. They begin their analysis by discussing what they...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Historical Climate Cycles
What better way to make predictions about future weather and climate patterns than with actual climate data from the past? Young climatologists analyze data from 400,000 to 10,000 years ago to determine if climate has changed over...
NASA
Geographical Influences
"If global warming is real, why is it so cold?" Distinguishing the difference between weather and climate is important when it comes to understanding our planet. In these activities, young scientists look at the climate patterns in a...
NOAA
History's Thermometers
How is sea coral like a thermometer? Part three of a six-part series from NOAA describes how oceanographers can use coral growth to estimate water temperature over time. Life science pupils manipulate data to determine the age of corals...
Learning Games Lab
Scientific Graph Reading
Interpreting graphs is an essential skill for young scientists. An interactive online lesson gives individuals an opportunity to review the components of a graph and learn to read and interpret the shape of a graph. The lesson includes...
Columbus City Schools
What is Up Th-air? — Atmosphere
Air, air, everywhere, but what's in it, and what makes Earth's air so unique and special? Journey through the layers above us to uncover our atmosphere's composition and how it works to make life possible below. Pupils conduct...
Virginia Department of Education
Weather Patterns and Seasonal Changes
Get your class outside to observe their surroundings with a lesson highlighting weather patterns and seasonal changes. First, learners take a weather walk to survey how the weather affects animals, people, plants, and trees during...
National Security Agency
Line Plots: Frogs in Flight
Have a hopping good time teaching your class how to collect and graph data with this fun activity-based lesson series. Using the provided data taken from a frog jumping contest, children first work together...
Kenan Fellows
Density
Most scholars associate density with floating, but how do scientists determine the exact density of an unknown liquid? The third lesson in a seven-part series challenges scholars to find the mass and volume of two unknown liquids. Each...
Michigan State University
Bug Lyphe!
Introduce ecology classes to biodiversity and interdependence in ecosystems with a PowerPoint presentation. Then, they get up-close and personal with the invertebrate world by collecting insects, classifying them, and graphing their...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Weather or Not
What is the difference between weather and climate? This is the focus question of a lesson that takes a deeper look at how weather data helps determine climate in a region. Using weather and climate cards, students decide...
Berkshire Museum
Camouflage!: Collecting Data and Concealing Color
Help young scholars see the important role camouflage plays in the survival of animals with a fun science lesson. Starting with an outdoor activity, children take on the role of hungry birds as they search for worms represented by...
North Carolina State University
Exploring Genetics Across the Middle School Science and Math Curricula
Where is a geneticist's favorite place to swim? A gene pool. Young geneticists complete hands-on activities, experiments, and real-world problem solving throughout the unit. With extra focus on dominant and recessive genes, Punnett...
Teach Engineering
Linear Regression of BMD Scanners
Objects may be more linear than they appear. Scholars investigate the relationship between the number of bone mineral density scanners in the US and time. Once they take the natural logarithm of the number of scanners, a linear...
Science 4 Inquiry
The Ups and Downs of Populations
As the reality of population decline across many species becomes real, pupils learn about the variables related to changes in populations. They complete a simulation of population changes and graph the results, then discuss limiting...
Discovery Education
Sonar & Echolocation
A well-designed, comprehensive, and attractive slide show supports direct instruction on how sonar and echolocation work. Contained within the slides are links to interactive websites and instructions for using apps on a mobile device to...
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Microbe Multiplication Magic
A lesson introduces the reproduction rate of E. coli though a video. Then scholars complete a data table and graph of reproduction rates in ideal conditions as well as less than ideal conditions.
Columbus City Schools
Speed Racers
Who wants to go fast? The answer? Your sixth-grade science superstars! The complete resource offers the ultimate, all-inclusive playbook for mastering the important concepts of speed versus time; distance versus time; and how...
NOAA
A Matter of Density
Larvae transportation on the New England seamounts is based on the density of the water. Scholars calculate density and graph salinity versus temperature to better understand the distribution of organisms in a water column....
National Academy of Sciences
CO2 and Temperature
Scientists can model global surface temperature with and without considering human emissions, but does do these factors really make a difference? Two interactive graphs demonstrate some factors that affect climate change. The first graph...
PBS
Exoplanets through Kepler’s Laws
The majority of all confirmed exoplanets relied on Kepler's laws to discover their locations. Scholars learn how to apply Kepler's laws and then practice using data to discover exoplanets. They benefit from NASA video footage, NOVA...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
DNA Sequence Assembly
Oncologists use DNA sequence data to identify specific cancers and offer more targeted treatments. Grasp an understanding of the complexity involved by learning how the body sequences and assembles DNA. Eager scientists explore the...