Harness the awesome power of gravity. Scholars build a zip line to transport a ping-pong ball. The challenge is to get to the finish line in under four seconds. At that speed, individuals better be sure to strap on the harness!

Eating healthy can be a challenge, especially for people with special dietary needs. After learning about standard nutritional needs for adults, learners take on the role of a dietician and work together to create a menu for one of the...

When mathematical errors happen, part of the learning is to figure out how it affects the rest of your calculations. The activity has your mathematicians solving for the area of a circular pipe and taking into consideration any errors...

Host a design challenge of Olympic proportion! Junior engineers build their own bobsleds using simple materials. The activity focuses on kinetic and potential energy and how the center of mass affects motion on a downhill track....

This phonemic awareness game is very similar to the classic card game war; partners divide picture cards, each taking half (included). They place one card face-up at a time and segment the phonemes aloud. Whoever has the most phonemes...

What a festive way to examine what happens to the heart in different gravitational situations! Small groups place a water-filled balloon in different locations (on a table top, in a tub of water, and held in a vertical position), drawing...

Two scenarios are presented for chemistry detectives to decipher. Both require the use of an infrared spectrometer and focus on the examination of polymer materials. In the first, lumps in polyethylene bottles are analyzed. In the...

An activity boosts reading comprehension by challenging scholars to answer questions about a narrative tale detailing elements—plot, characters, setting, theme, problem, and solution.

Explore the measures of central tendency through a challenging task. Given values for the mean, median, mode, and range, collaborative groups create a set of data that would produce those values. They then critique other answers and...

A game designed to support advanced phonics instruction challenges scholars to read and break a word into syllables. If the player is correct, they move their game piece forward on the board. Whoever gets to the end first wins!

A hands-on activity challenges young scholars to name a picture, segment its phonemes, then blend those sounds to make the word. 

Given a deck of cards with different words printed, pairs draw cards and work together to locate definitions for each multiple-meaning word. Learners complete a worksheet that challenges them to write the word, two of its definitions,...

Is it possible for a rectangle to have the same area and perimeter? If you disregard units, it happens! In a challenging task, groups work to determine the rectangles that meet these criterion. The hope is that learners will naturally...

Teach solving absolute value inequalities through inquiry. Groups use their knowledge of absolute value and solving inequalities to find a solution set to an absolute value inequality. Working collaboratively encourages discussion,...

Space, the Final Frontier. The nine NASA-created challenges in this unit are designed to teach class members the engineering design process. Each challenge comes with teacher and student pages that can be used individually or as a...

Class members gain awareness of the challenges people with disabilities face, such as those with vision impairments, autism, or speech and language disabilities, as they progress through a series of engaging and informative learning...

Motion is the focus of ten hands-on activities that challenge scholars to build machines invented by Leonardo da Vinci. Following several steps, small groups work collaboratively to recreate machines including levers, pulleys, wheels,...

Add a little fun and fancy to English language arts with an activity that challenges scholars to write a limerick. Authors follow five rules in order to compose an original poem that contains a specific rhyme scheme. 

Beneficial for beginning readers, struggling readers, and those in need of review, a set of language arts activities is a great addition to any foundational reading unit. Focusing on phonological awareness, fluency, instructional...

Discover onset and rime blends using this interactive activity which will appeal to your kinesthetic learners. Using the sliding templates provided, budding readers try different onsets with each rime. They practice reading skills by...

Whether or not your class includes kids with significant disabilities, teaching the alphabet to emergent readers and writers can be a challenge. Here's an activity packet designed for all learners.

Discover relationships between linear and nonlinear functions. Initially, a set of data seems linear, but upon further exploration, pupils realize the data can model an infinite number of functions. Scholars use multiple representations...

An activity challenges scholars to sort picture cards based on the number of syllables they count as they say the item's name on each card. Depending on how many syllables they count, they place the card in the corresponding box...

A rhyming activity challenges scholars to sort picture cards according to their rhyme. Four picture cards line up across the top of a pocket chart. Learners take turns choosing from a face-down stack of picture cards and sort them...