Devote an hour to computer coding ... it's time well spent! The activity has young computer scientists write code to solve puzzles in the Minecraft game. They learn how to apply block codes and repeat loops.

Judy Clocks are a great invention. Here, learners review telling time to hour and half hour on Judy clocks, begin telling time to quarter hour, use clock stamps to practice, and play computer games using Trudy's Time and Place House...

This cool lesson plan is ideal for elementary engineers or physical scientists, especially when learning about heat transfer and insulation. After reading a page of background information, engineering teams collaborate to design and...

Students record each other running, walking, throwing a ball, or doing a similar activity for a set distance. They import the video clips into iMovie. They compute how long it took in miles per hour.

Engineering design projects serve as great opportunities for collaborative problem solving. In this case, students work in small groups designing, building, and eventually testing a structure that meets a teacher-specified objective. It...

Home is where the power-consuming devices are. Scholars use given power ratings for common electrical devices to calculate the energy consumed in two hours as well as in a month. They use the average cost per kilowatt-hour to calculate...

You don't need to know how to code in order to teach your students! Show them learning is a lifelong skill by learning along with them. Take this activity for example; the code is on the left, and the result is on the right. Can you...

What a bright idea! Working in groups, scholars design a solar phone charger by applying concepts from the unit. They use solar modules and buck and boost converters in their creations, which must be able to charge a phone after...

Students plot activities for a 24 hour day. They record their information on a spread sheet program. Students list categories they use and write equations for cells that add cells of each category together. Students create a pie chart of...

High schoolers simulate creating and calculating employees payrolls using hourly wages, deductions, and proper taxes.

Students investigate energy consumption by researching wattage.  In this electricity instructional activity, students discuss how electricity works and gets transferred to our electronic devices through generators and circuits....

Technology or engineering teams are given a task to design, construct, and test the efficiency of a structure that will foster an even temperature throughout an entire sunny day. Intended as a long-term project, pupils research, plan,...

Students create a one hour lesson plan on "How to Succeed as a Nontraditional Student." They brainstorm and research all the alternatives to becoming a "norm" student in today's society. They compile their research and findings into a...

Students read an article about robots and social behavior. As a class, they write down new vocabulary words they are unfamilar with in the article. In groups, they discover what all the words have in commom and identify the type of...

Begin a unit on the heart, the parts and the function of the heart, and about heart disease with a resource that includes a lecture, a PowerPoint presentation, and research information.  The instructional activity is the first of a...

Did you know that people, known as computers, performed the complex calculations that are now done by electronic computers? Three of these human computers, Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, and Melba Roy Mouton are featured in a...

Students conduct research on four fast food restaurants to determine where they might apply for a job. They conduct research on hourly rate, working conditions, and benefits, construct a spreadsheet with a graph, and present their...

Welcome to the code side. The interactive lesson introduces coding in a game format with familiar characters. Young computer experts learn to develop code to control the interaction of the characters in the game. The activity ends with...

Do not let the class just sit and rot. Pupils learn how decomposition and nutrient recycling is important to an ecosystem. Groups design an experiment to determine how environmental conditions affect decomposition. They develop a poster...

Take a look at acceleration within the context of automotive technology. They vary the mass on a toy car and run it down a ramp, exploring Newton's second law of motion. Though this is a classic lab activity, you will appreciate the...

Upper graders form a "Presidential Task Force," and attempt to make recommendations concerning the future of the national power grid. After a teacher-led discussion which proves that our nation's energy consumption will soon outpace our...

Enough with the talking, let's build something! In the fifth step in the engineering design process, young engineers build a prototype to test their ideas. The lesson walks them through the process of evaluating it step-by-step....

This is what all of the excitement has been building up to! Young engineers create engineering drawings, use machines to manufacture their products, test, and evaluate their designs in the last step in the engineering design...

No need to go to Ollivanders to buy a magic wand. In the chemistry lab activity, young magicians mix chemicals to create combustible compounds. By applying these compounds to an iron wire, they create magic wands.