Begin with an online pre-quiz about West Nile Virus. Using a fictional scenario, young epidemiologists read how it is transmitted and examine the stages of the life cycle of a mosquito. They imagine that they are members of the Centers...

Between the pull of gravity and the push of air pressure, it's a wonder animals can balance or move at all. With a hands-on lesson about the center of gravity, learners discuss their own experiences with the topic, then work with...

Get kids' heads spinning by challenging them to design a top that will rotate for a minimum of 10 seconds without leaving a 30-cm circle. Groups of learners collaborate through a planning stage, testing stage, and evaluation stage. Some...

Create a cross-curricular learning experience around a shared reading of Cynthia Rylant's book Snow. From writing poetry and a singing a song about snow, to creating paper snowflakes and solving math story problems, this resource...

Introduce the scientific method with a reading comprehension activity. Have kids read a few paragraphs that describe the process of making a hypothesis, gathering evidence, and taking notes that will support the experiment.

Rainforests are the topic of this brief reading passage. Learners can find out all about the different layers of the rainforest as well as the types of creatures that live there. After reading, they respond to five questions about the text.

Take your class of youngsters on a prehistoric adventure with this four-lesson series on dinosaurs. Accompanying the Meet the Dinosaurs books by Don Lessem, these lessons engage children in writing their own dinosaur books,...

Energize a shared reading of the Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip with this collection of supplemental materials. Whether your looking for discussion questions, reading comprehension worksheets, or writing prompts,...

Use this multidisciplinary lesson to delve into these subjects: English language arts, math, science, drama, and character education. After reading, discussing, and making interpretations about Go To Sleep, Gecko!: A Balinese...

Students describe habitats within ecosystems, describe how organisms modify environment to meet their needs, and identify characteristics for butterfly survival. In this butterfly lesson plan, students explore all aspects of the...

Immediately capture the attention of your class with the smell of freshly popped popcorn in the sixth instructional activity of this series on the needs of living things. Young scientists first use their senses to make and record...

Water is the source of life. It appears in poetry in both peaceful and torrential descriptions; it appears in earth science in its liquid, gaseous, and solid states. Combine these interpretations of our planet's most precious and...

Young astronomers travel through the solar system in the pages of this printable book. With clear pictures and simple sentence structure, this is a perfect resource for exploring the planets in the early elementary grade levels.

Insects are like little aliens living all around us. Explore fun and interesting insect facts by having the class read a short informational paragraph. The paragraph focuses on how we are similar and different to insects and includes...

In lab groups, young scientists place aluminum cans with a bubble-solution cap into different temperatures of water to see what size of bubble dome forms. As part of an atmosphere unit in preparation for learning about convection...

Explore the wonderful world of earthworms as your class learns about the requirements of animal life. After building soda bottle terrariums, students observe worms over the course of a couple weeks, building an understanding that all...

Students use a hypothetical scenario to investigate inhalation of an airborne pollutant and ingestion of a waterborne pollutant. They work in pairs, investigating differences in overall exposure to contaminants by calculating inhalation...

During a three-part lesson plan, learners make a cabbage juice pH indicator and use it to analyze the waste products of yeast after feeding them with sugar. The intent is to demonstrate how living organisms produce carbon dioxide, which...

Are there factors that put some individuals at a higher risk for drug addiction than others? Learn more about the risk factors that may make some people more susceptible to addiction, as well as protective factors that help prevent...

Lights, camera, action! With the cell at center stage, guide your seventh grade biologists through the tiny drama that plays out within every living thing. Then, enjoy the show as they portray the organelles they've studied—a performance...

Throughout history, the growth of big cities has resulted in the destruction of ecosystems. In the case of Chicago, IL, a grassland that was once home to bison, deer, wolves, and foxes quickly became a booming city of over three million...

Life science learners construct lung-o-meters from gallon-sized milk jugs and then measure their lung capacities. For older students, have them graph the vital lung capacities of each person in the class. Cross-curricular pieces are...

Even as adults it can be hard to distinguish needs from wants. Using pictures of common, everyday items, children make a pocket chart separating the objects they need from those that they want. Discuss their choices, explaining that...

What better way to learn about muscle than by dissecting one? Using cow muscle (beef), learners compare bundles of yarn to muscle fibers as they explore each. The supplemental reading about astronauts losing muscle mass in space and what...