Curated OER
Tracks along the Trail
Students identify animal tracks outdoors. In this animal life lesson, students go outdoors and find several different animal tracks to identify. Students also discuss how animals must adapt in the winter months.
Curated OER
Track Traces
Students explore animal characteristics by participating in an animal anatomy activity. In this animal tracks instructional activity, students identify the differences between specific animals and the shape of their footprints. Students...
Curated OER
Animal Tracks Program
Entice your learners with this lesson on animal footprints. After reading the story Footprints in the Snow by Cynthia Benjamin, they use photos to identify animals and their footprints. Then they participate in an activity to classify...
Curated OER
The Story that Tracks Tell
Eighth graders observe and investigate animal tracks. They draw prints for local animals and switch with another student to guess the animal, identify animal tracks in a nearby wood lot, create plaster casts of the tracks, and write a...
Curated OER
Here Comes Winter!
Students investigate winter behaviors in animals. They describe winter and write about the characteristics of the season by drawing and labeling a winter picture. Students then conduct research on a chosen animal and create a chart. ...
Curated OER
Tracking in Wisconsin
Students examine how to identify the tracks and track patterns of some common Wisconsin animals. They examine how the footprints of these animals reveal how different feet help different animals navigate the winter snow or survive in...
Stanford University
Solstice and Equinox Season Model
How can December 21 be the shortest day of the year when all days are 24 hours long? Pupils see how to build a model showing the differences between winter and summer solstices and equinoxes. Using this model, classes can then discuss...
Curated OER
My Winter Acrostic
Learners create an acrostic poem about winter. In this lesson plan about acrostic poems, students explore acrostic poetry. Learners read an acrostic poem as an example. As a class, students come up with an acrostic poem for the word...
Curated OER
Biodiversity in Our Watershed
Eighth graders create a database of animals and birds in the area in which they live. They use molded prints to make a cast of an imprint from a specific animal. They identify and research animals and prepare an outline for an oral...
Curated OER
Snug in the Snow
Students explore how snow helps animals survive in the wild. In this animal science lesson, students review key vocabulary words and discuss types of animal adaptations. Students construct shoebox to simulate the snowy environment where...
Curated OER
In the Company of Whales
Middle schoolers examine whales and how they migrate. In this whale instructional activity students research whales and their migration patterns.
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...
Curated OER
Global Greenup
Students utilize satellite images to track the life cycle of vegetational growth over a large area. Animal migratory patterns are compared to this cycle.
Curated OER
Get- To Know Mammals
Students take a field trip and record information about mammals. In this mammals lesson, students hunt for tracks, waste, or other evidence that a mammal exists in this habitat. Students complete a worksheet on the evidence they have found.
Curated OER
Develop a Bird Feeder Watch List
Students explore biology by identifying animals on their school ground. For this bird species lesson, students create and utilize a simple bird feeder to attract birds near their classroom at which point they observe the color, size and...
Curated OER
Hawk in Flight
Learners use information gathered by satellites to explore the migration of the Swainson's hawk from the western border of Minnesota to the southern portion of South America.
Curated OER
Do the Locomotion with Me
Fourth graders listen to a reading of In the Snow Who's Been Here? They experiment with making tracks by painting the bottom of their shoes and making tracks using different forms of locomotion. They apply what they know to winter...
Curated OER
DOWNHILL DISCOVERIES
Students studykinetic energy, friction, drag and acceleration by relating it to the Winter Olympics. In this physical properties lesson students create tracks and determine how the course conditions affect bobsled, luge and downhill ski...
Curated OER
All Aboard- Central Pacific Railroad
Second graders explore the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. In this U.S. history lesson plan, 2nd graders discuss vocabulary and events that occurred in the 1860s pertaining to the construction of the Central Pacific...
Curated OER
Rubber Duckies and Ocean Currents
Students explore marine life by conducting a rubber duck experiment. In this water currents lesson, students practice identifying latitude and longitude coordinates on a map and define the currents of major oceans. Students discuss the...
Curated OER
Monitor Marine Migrants
Students, in groups, track the seasonal journey of a species, such as a shorebird, sea turtle, or marine mammal, using various sources of migration data
Curated OER
Adaptations: Fit For Survival
Students track species using the Journey North project. They examine the meaning of physical and behavioral adaptation, migration, and identify adaptations that help the species they track survive.
Curated OER
Cranes, Crosswalks, and Big Gulps
Students watch a video and answer questions based on wildlife jobs. In this wildlife lesson plan, students learn that biologists don't just play with animals but that there is a lot of study involved.
Curated OER
Survivor
Seventh graders investigate changes in the ecosystem within the school year. They see that ecosystems, communities, populations, and organisms are dynamic and change over time. They, in groups, collect data in quadrants in the fall,...