Sixth graders explore the nature of habitats on an ABC hike. In groups, they collect items that make up habitats including plants, feathers, and leaves among other materials. Students then classify and organize the collected materials...

Students work in groups as they read chapters of Charles Darwin's, Voyage of the Beagle. They take notes on the chapter and in their group make a timeline of the chapter. They tape the timelines together in order to depict the entire...

Students establish classifications of shapes by various properties (angles, sides, etc.). They introduce the important properties of common shapes. Students develop an awareness of the wide variety of ways the 2-D shapes can be alike.

Young scholars work in groups of 4-6 for the experiment/activity part of this exercise. They classify ten animals using the information on the picture to group the animals. Students develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and...

Beginning chemists examine a collection of elements and compounds as they are introduced to the periodic table. The lesson plan is not cohesive and does not provide detailed instructions on how to teach it. However, it does includes a...

Students are introduced to the Munsell System of Color Notation that is used for direct comparison of soils anywhere in the world. They become familiar with hue, value and chroma notations, identify colors that act as clues to the...

Students compare a variety or bird characteristics. They identify and classify birds within their local area. Students investigate how to examine and scrutinize differences in features of organisms and understand variation in the...

High schoolers share with the class how they think plants are classified and are assessed on their prior knowledge. They use a packet to complete throughout the week at their own pace, which includes various activities to familiarize...

In this taxonomy instructional activity, students understand how organisms are classified using Linnaeus' system. Students classify organisms as either plant or animal. This instructional activity has 24 fill in the blank and 6 matching...

Students complete a short quiz reviewing classification. In groups, they create their own family trees and discuss who is related to whom and are introduced to phylogenies in genetics. To end the lesson, they take notes on Taxonomy and...

Students develop classification scheme that meets the established rules of the Linnaean system. They write one page essay on classification choices.

Two blooms of phytoplankton, instead of just one, now occur in the Arctic due to declining sea ice, which will have widespread effects on the marine life and climate. In small groups, participants build an Arctic food web with given...

Alphabet insects! Who has ever heard of such a thing? Get ready because your class is going to research insects that start with a specific letter of the alphabet. In small groups, they'll use the Internet and reference texts to locate...

Who knew determining author's purpose could be turned into a game? Four teams compete to correctly identify the author's purpose for writing a series of passages.

A good prompt is hard to find, especially ones that encourage application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of a text. Help is here in the form of a prompt list for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four that offers essay topics that...

What can one learn about a planet based on a small surface sample? Learners will explore artifacts from a mystery planet and see what they can determine about the planet based on the evidence in front of them. 

Calcareous ooze ... what an interesting name! The 15th installment of a 23-part NOAA Enrichment in Marine sciences and Oceanography (NEMO) program focuses on sediments found on the ocean floor. After viewing the slideshow lecture,...

High schoolers synthesize the information they've learned from each chapter of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting with a creative summarizing activity. With a graphic organizer for all of the book's chapters, readers title...

Explore the amazing temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest. Your class starts by investigating the animals and plants of the Northwest, specifically Washington, and then research an animal population common to the area. In small...

Bring some music to your language arts lesson with a reading comprehension activity. Learners read an informational passage about different musical instruments before answering a series of comprehension and vocabulary questions.

Students explore the invertebrate phyla. They discuss the characteristics of the invertebrate Phyla in the Kingdom Animal. Students classify organisms into Phyla based on their characteristics. They distinguish radial symmetry, bilateral...

The details about invertebrates and invertebrates give valuable information about the characteristics of multicellular organisms. Examples of nutrition styles and symmetry are interesting. Also, these slides are clear in presenting a...

Young scholars pretend to be shark biologists employed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who have been flown into the coastal city of Sao Luis in Brazil because locals have noticed an unidentified shark at...

This lab activity does not have to be done with AP environmental scientists. It can also be done with middle to high school earth scientists. The procedures aren't complex. Learners determine the density of dry and wet sand in order to...