Curated OER
Household Conservation/Efficiency
Hook your class up to an online home energy usage calculator so that they can estimate the amount used per month by their families. Then give them Watt meters with which they will measure the power consumption of several small...
Curated OER
Mealworms
Crawl into the world of the darkling beetle with this scientific investigation. Watch as the insects move through the larval, pupal, and adult stages of life, recording observations along the way. Discuss the necessities of life as young...
Curated OER
Bringing Household Items to Life
Use folk tales as inspiration for learning about and using personification in creative writing. Learners brainstorm together in order to practice personification before writing their own poems or paragraphs about a household object.
NASA
The Evidence is “Clear”!
Do you think you know better? Become a scientist and prove it. Scholars review the evidence for two different theories of the origins of the universe. They notice the empirical observations as well as the inferences to determine which is...
Polar Trec
Global Snow Cover Changes
Snow is actually translucent, reflecting light off its surface which creates its white appearance. Pairs or individuals access the given website and answer questions about snow cover. They analyze graphs and charts, examine data, and...
Santa Monica College
Flame Tests of Metal Cations
Scientists used flame tests to identify elements long before the invention of emission spectroscopy. Young chemists observe a flame test of five metal cations in the fourth lesson of an 11-part series. Individuals then work...
Cornell University
LEDs Rainbow Connection
View LED lights through the eyes of a scientist. Young scholars learn to view light as a wave frequency and connect various frequencies to different colors on the light spectrum. A lab activity asks groups to measure the frequency of...
NOAA
The Oceanographic Yo-yo
How does chemistry help deep-sea explorers? Part four of a five-part series of lessons from aboard the Okeanos Explorer introduces middle school scientists to technologies used in ocean exploration. Groups work together to analyze data...
Cornell University
Math Is Malleable?
Learn about polymers while playing with shrinky dinks. Young scholars create a shrinky dink design, bake it, and then record the area, volume, and thickness over time. They model the data using a graph and highlight the key features of...
Curated OER
Kids' Bread Restaurant
Pupils use technology as a tool for learning. They work together on a special project.
Curated OER
Food Science, Scientific Method: Reliability and Validity in Empirical Research
Secondary learners explore food science by conducting an experiment using the scientific method and creating a science fair project based on their findings. They learn about food technology and modern research development. They...
Curated OER
Popcorn Book Report
Young scholars retell story events on a lunch bag filled with popcorn. They illustrate the story events and enjoy the popcorn snack.
Curated OER
Energy: Light -- Spinning Color Wheel
Second graders make spinning color wheels to determine how energy effects what colors look like. They paint or color a color wheel with the seven colors of the spectrum. Next, the spin the wheel to determine what happens. In order to...
Curated OER
Dream Kitchen
Advanced ESL students can engage in this lesson designed to practice compiling lists, adding costs, and describing why they chose a particular item. They will choose items from a magazine that they'd like in their dream kitchen. Next,...
Curated OER
Small Appliances Unit
An informative, but not particularly academic, unit about how to use a variety of kitchen appliances. Information about each appliance is given in a handout, as well as instructions for use and a few comprehension questions. This set of...
Curated OER
Soapy Solids
Students observe and explain how a change in temperature causes a physical change in a substance. In this physical science lesson, students use a soap making kit to observe the effects of adding heat to the bar soap as they create a bar...
Curated OER
Fahrenheit Follies
Second graders analyze the effects of sunlight on a glass of water by using the thermometer to measure its temperature. They predict and measure the difference between water outside in the sun and shade and inside. They role-play a game...
Curated OER
Differential Thermal Calorimetry
Young scholars access prior knowledge of infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, gamma rays, x-rays and cosmic waves. In this electromagnetic waves lesson, students hold a mock trial electromagnetic spectrum. Young scholars present...
Curated OER
Waves Interference
Students identify different wave types and their characteristics. In this wave lesson students complete activities by activating tuning forks and interpreting data.
Curated OER
Does Soap Float?
Students form hypotheses and carry out an investigation in order to answer a central question: Does soap float? The focus of this lesson is on scientific inquiry, but it incorporates scientific topics such as sinking and floating.
Curated OER
Automated Intelligence
Students redesign everyday robotic devices to increase their autonomy and their usefulness. Propose ideas that would make directly controlled robotic devices more antonymous and create posters illustrating their ideas.
Curated OER
A Healthy Diet
Students examine their own fast food habits and discuss the poor nutritional value of this type of food. They read nutritional labels on popular packaged foods. They analyze the risks of a diet high in fat and sodium versus a well...
Curated OER
Let's Make Fudge
Young scholars make fudge after reading fractional values in recipes and finding equivalent fractions to those presented in the recipes. They study measurement abbreviations.