What is the difference between making inferences and making observations? Young climatologists refer to a PowerPoint to make observations on each slide. They record their observations in a provided worksheet before drawing a...

Inferencing is a necessary reading skill to uncover non-explicit messages in text. Use the set of resources as a way to guide learners toward becoming expert inferrers through reading prompts and literature with text and without text.

Why is the weather man wrong so often? Young climatologists discover how chaos rules both weather and climate through a math-based activity. Using an iterative equation, the class examines how small day-to-day weather events total up to...

Read the story The Great Smelly, Slobbery, Small-Tooth Dog: A Folktale from Great Britain by Margaret Read MacDonald and choose from multiple activities to learn about the tale's theme—kindness. With so many options, your kind kids will...

You may not be able to take a field trip to the moon, but that doesn't mean your class can't study moon rocks. Using graham crackers as the moon's bedrock and powdered donuts as micrometeorites, young scientists simulate...

Shirley Jackson's short story, "Charles," provides middle schoolers with an opportunity to practice their close reading skills. Using the provided list of prompts, scholars read and reread the story, then create a multimodal response to...

How does carbon dioxide affect the world's oceans? The final installment in a series of six lessons has pupils research ocean acidification, then conduct an experiment to witness the delicate balance that exists in our seas. Materials...

What's the best way to learn how watersheds work? Build one! Combining engineering, the water cycle, and ecology concerns, the activity is the perfect fit for an interdisciplinary unit. Teams construct a model watershed with simple...

Does mass change during a chemical reaction? Demonstrate the Law of Conservation of Matter while encouraging class members to be creative with a two-part lesson. First, learners use Alka-Seltzer® tablets and water to demonstrate the...

When astronauts get hungry in outer space, they can't just call and have a pizza delivered. In order to gain an appreciation for the challenges associated with space travel, young learners are given the task of selecting,...

Scholars create and perform experiments attempting to answer Buffon's Coin problem. They discover the relationships between geometry and probability, empirical and theoretical probabilities, and area of a circle and square.

Is assembling the periodic table as simple as Tetris? Scholars arrange colored cards into a logical order and then make connections to the arrangement of the periodic table. Hands-on activities include adding trend arrows and analyzing...

Head to the treeline and beyond to examine how this feature of the landscape affects weather and climate, which gives scientists clues about its health. Class members' observations of photographs provide the data...

To develop their skill at drawing inferences from observations, sixth graders rotate through six stations, conduct a series of experiments, make observations, and draw inference from what they observe.

Will this water source support life? Small groups test the chemistry of the water drawn from two different sources. They then compare the collected data to acceptable levels to draw conclusions about the health of the source. The...

Just how confident can we be with statistics calculated from a sample? Learners take this into account as they look at data from a sample of petroleum engineer salaries. They analyze the effect sample size has on a margin of error and...

What can layers of rock teach us about the climate? Young scientists solve a mystery about who stole a cookie by applying the law of superposition. Then, they apply the same concept to solve a more difficult mystery, trying to determine...

Exactly how fair are the board games children grow up playing? Young mathematicians investigate this questions as they work their way through this five-lesson series on basic probability. 

Is the golf course causing issues in the stream? Find out with a resource that has groups perform chemical water tests to analyze the effects of a golf course on a stream. Pupils collect water above and below the course and analyze the...

Geology geniuses analyze sediment samples with a hand lens and sort according to physical characteristics. They also learn about the processes of cementation, compaction, and lithification within the rock cycle. The lesson plan is...

Scholars learn about the carbon cycle, play a carbon cycle game, and then write a story based on their role as a carbon atom during the game. After the writings, pupils analyze the carbon cycle by leading a class discussion on the material.

Go on a moon mining expedition from the safety of your classroom with this space exploration simulation. Using simple models of the moon's surface prepared ahead of time by the teacher, young scientists are challenged with locating and...