Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Animals and Engineering

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students study animal classification and their interactions.  In this animals and engineering lesson students study animal communities and how engineers use this knowledge to create new technologies. 
Lesson Plan
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I'm All Mixed Up

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Middle school scientists compare and contrast heterogeneous and homogeneous mixtures. They differentiate solutions, colloids, and suspensions by examining samples of each. Note that the bulk of the lesson plan directs you how to...
Lesson Plan
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Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Interesting! Have your high schoolers watch this 13-minute clip from the documentay, "Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?" It examines the fear we have as a culture about death and whether or not the media increases those fears. The focus...
Lesson Plan
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Folktales and Ecology: Animals and Humans in Cooperation and Conflict

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Story elements such as conflict, character analysis, resolution, and moral are discussed and charted as elementary children read folktales involving animals. An element of science is also introduced as learners discover what a keystone...
Lesson Plan
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The Illusion of Race

For Teachers 7th - 12th
This is mostly an exploration of race through an interactive website, class readings, and discussion. Individuals take an online quiz about race, they answer questions on a worksheet by visiting another website, and discover that race is...
Lesson Plan
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Plants, Ecology, Seed Planting

For Teachers 1st
First graders use senses to examine objective or events, then gather and interpret data with instruments. They design invention to support or refute hypothesis, then generate, record, and organize data. They improve environmental...
Lesson Plan
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The Shadow Knows - Creating Shadows

For Teachers K - 1st
Young learners recognize a shadow and witness how shadows occur when light is blocked. They access streamed video, standard video, and websites in order to engage in their study of how light is naturally blocked to create shadows. An...
Lesson Plan
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Curriculum Activities: Ecological Concepts

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Students explore a variety of microclimates to develop an awareness of why organisms live where they do. Moisture, time of day, land cover, and temperature form the basic concepts of this investigation.
Lesson Plan
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Manduca

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Students investigate the basic survival needs of both hornworms and humans. They compare and contrast the them by making a class list.
Lesson Plan
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Your Body's Defenses When Microbes Attack

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Students study how being exposed to a harmful microbe doesn't automatically make them ill. They discover the lines of defense against microbe invaders and explore the roles of skin and mucus membranes, white blood cells, and lymphocytes...
Lesson Plan
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Systems, UP, Up and Away!

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students discuss rockets and how they work. Students research basic information about the Space Shuttle. Students work in collaborative groups creating "rockets" with empty film canisters. Students launch their "rockets" and record...
Lesson Plan
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Lunar Real Estate

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Students investigate the aspect of colonizing the moon by comparing techniques that are used on Earth. The colonization takes place with the planning of a hypothetical model. The model is used as a point of discussion and target...
Lesson Plan
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Who Will Get The Job? (Part 1)

For Teachers 7th
Seventh graders are asked a variety of questions and identify the skills as job-task or not. As a class, they discuss how they could lose a job before they start working and review how to sell their skills for the job posting. To end the...
Lesson Plan
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Investigating Light

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students study concepts associated with light. In this light lesson, students observe an demonstration by the teacher. They examine reflection and refraction of light and name things that reflect light and those that refract it. They...
Lesson Plan
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Asteroids

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students study asteroids and how their size relates to a possible danger of one colliding with Earth.  In this asteroids lesson plan students see how big an asteroid has to be to cause destruction to Earth. 
Lesson Plan
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Great Rivers 2: The Ups and Downs of River Flooding

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Second in a three-part lesson on rivers, this lesson focuses on the flooding that occurs in riparian locations. First, learners take a look at facts about the Amazon River. They read online materials and fill in a worksheet as they...
Lesson Plan
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Bacteria

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Young scholars study the advantages and disadvantages of bacteria.  For this bacteria lesson students draw and label the different types of bacteria.
Lesson Plan
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Who Says Plants Can't Move?

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students discover how plants spread their seeds using other plants and animals. In this plant lesson, students role play different plants and how their seeds travel. Students then have a class discussion to ensure their understanding.
Lesson Plan
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Where is Away?

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Focusing on where are garbage goes once we dispose of it, learners explore environmental concerns. Using a clear format, this lesson leads learners through a discussion of waste reduction, recycling, and composting. Then, they discuss...
Lesson Plan
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A New You!

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Science learners journal familiar ways that the human body can regenerate or heal itself. In small groups, they research and create a poster of current information on stems cells and how they can be used to regenerate. The article for...
Lesson Plan
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Hippocratic Medical Rounds

For Teachers 10th - 12th
A very interesting way to model Hippocrates allows your clas to to compare world views and to illustrate how ideas have changed at key times throughout the history of science. This simulation has students role play patients and physicians.
PPT
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Seeds - What are Seeds?

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed
At minimum, beginning botanists learn the terminology used when discussion seed germination. This set of slides lists basic seed parts, requirements for germination, steps of the process, and then it differentiates between monocot and...
Lesson Plan
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Responses to Changes in the Environment

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders study ecosystems, and see how plants and animals must adapt to changes in their environment in order to survive. Pictures of the snow shoe hare in the winter and summer are shown. Learners determine that the change in...
PPT
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Tour of the Cell 3

For Teachers 7th - 10th
This PowerPoint deals with some of the basic cell tasks and how structures are specialized to help with those. The makeup of the cytoskeleton and centrioles is explained and some nice pictures of a cell cross-section will help recap for...