Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Energy: The Big Picture

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed
Students research about energy related topics. In this earth science lesson plan, students discuss ways to save energy. They create a presentation about their research and share it with the class.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Living in Extreme Environments

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore the living conditions needed to grow bacteria. They develop an experiment that will test the ability of bacteria to survive various temperature extremes. In addition, they complete a lab reprt to share their results.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Stellar Discoveries That Are Out of This World

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students hear of the recent discovery of a group of planets orbiting the star Upsilon Andromedae. Each student create a page about an element of the universe,
Lesson Plan
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Scientists and Statesmen in Early America

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Explore the historic and cultural context of the foundations of the United States of America. They identify the political and scientific contributions of early American scientists.
Lesson Plan
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Mars

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students debate the ethical considerations involved in colonizing and terra-forming Mars. They have a preliminary discussion and view a video clip about Mars, then break into support and oppose groups to research and prepare their...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Creating Craters

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students explore parts of an impact crater and compare and contrast craters found in Earth, the Moon, and Mars. Crater formation is modelled and the relationship of mass, velocity, and size of the projectile to the crater formation is...
Lesson Plan
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Getting to Know Saturn: Moons, Rings, and Relationships

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Students identify the different objects that orbit Saturn. In this space science instructional activity, students plot the graph of orbital speed and distance. They explain why planets and asteroids remain in orbit around the sun.
Lesson Plan
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Kure Waste Chase Game Lesson

For Teachers 6th - 10th
Students work together to identify marine debris. They explain the effect of the debris on various ecosystems. They draw different types of ocean currents as well.
Lesson Plan
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Planet Paths: Studying Planetary Orbital Paths

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students define and identify planetary orbit, ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, and simulate Kepler's Second Law. They explore interactive websites demonstrating orbital motion and complete modeling activities.
Lesson Plan
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Design a Deep- Sea Vertebrate or Invertebrate

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Students design a deep-sea animal. In this research based lesson, students research and design a vertebrate or invertebrate that lives in a methane hydrate habitat. They compile a class chart of the adaptations animals have in this...
Worksheet
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NASA Anniversary

For Students 5th - 10th
In this NASA Anniversary worksheet, students complete activities such as reading a passage, phrase matching, fill in the blanks, correct words, multiple choice, spelling, sequencing, scrambled sentences, writing questions, survey, and...
Lesson Plan
NASA

Next Generation Spacecraft - Orion

For Teachers 8th - 12th
Emergine space engineers discover the area of complex geometric shapes. They find that, just as a spacecraft is composed of many smaller parts, so can polygons be broken into smaller shapes.
Lesson Plan
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Triangles

For Teachers 6th - 10th
Students identify triangles in the real world and construct their own triangle using drinking straws. They explore abstract triangles and find additional geometric shapes such as trapezoids. Students discuss similar shapes and examine...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Energy Transformation with Balance Toys

For Teachers K
Students explore and identify the concepts of potential and kinetic energy. They define kinetic and potential energy and discuss examples of each. Students then play a game involving balance toys, demonstrating both kinetic and potential...
Lesson Plan
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Exploring Magnetism

For Teachers 9th - 11th
Pupils participate in several activities that allow them to better understand magnetism.  In this exploratory lesson plan students take part in different activities to help them to better understand magnetic fields, circuits and...
Lesson Plan
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Planet Impact

For Teachers 8th - 10th
Learners use their knowledge to crash a comet into Jupiter or make a comet fly past the planet without colliding with it.
Lesson Plan
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Sun and Shade

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students explore the ways that plants adapt to their environments. They examine plants that thrive in the shade, versus plants that thrive in direct sunlight. Special attention is devoted to the shape of leaves on respective sun and...
Lesson Plan
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Sweet Candy Comets

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders use candy to make a comet. In this activity, 4th graders examine the role comets have played throughout history, students watch NASA videos about comets and complete the activity by making an edible model of a comet. This...
Lesson Plan
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Echolocation

For Teachers 1st - 3rd
Students explore echolocation. In this bats science lesson, students compare sunlight reflecting off a mirror to sound waves hitting a bat's ears. Students complete a worksheet about bats.
Lesson Plan
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Postcards From Mars

For Teachers 5th
Fifth graders research and explore what life would be like for human colonists on Mars. They explore various websites, read and discuss newspaper articles, develop a chart of the hardships and conditions that would be faced by colonists...
Lesson Plan
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Motion Experiment

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students experiment with the laws of motion. In this motion lesson plan, students explore Newton's Laws of Motion. Students work in groups experimenting with different objects and observing different types of motion.
Lesson Plan
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Strange New Planet

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students choose a spherical object to decorate with stickers, scents, etc to make it interesting. They write a key to the features for future explorers. Students use viewers to observe mystery planets. Students simulate NASA missions by...
Lesson Plan
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Lemon Batteries Revised

For Teachers 5th
Fifth graders investigate how chemical energy in food and batteries is potential or stored energy. They discuss how batteries function, and create a class list of different forms of energy. Students then create a lemon battery that...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Using Vegetation, Precipitation, and Surface Temperature to Study Climate Zones

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students begin their examination of the climate zones found around the world. Using a software program, they identify the relationship between the vegetation, climate and temperatures of the different zones. They also plot coordinates...