How much energy does it take to light a room? Class members calculate the total wattage it takes to light the classroom. Through calculations, responsible scientists determine the cost of energy for the year, then figure out...

Make the move toward incorporating more technology in your classroom and help to prepare your class for the professional world. Here is a resource that describes the Common Core standard while incorporating technology and English...

As the U.S. Postal System adjusts to virtual messaging, will snail mail slowly fade away? Examine the current phenomenon with your class through this political cartoon analysis, which has background information to give context for 2...

What is happening to our newspapers? In the context of the current trends of media and the ever-declining print news industry, this handout includes two political cartoons for pupils to analyze, both created by artists working for...

Help your class understand the magnitude of the distance between Earth and Mars with an activity that asks small groups to use balloons to create scale models of the Earth, Moon, and Mars. Class members figure out the distances...

Ramp up the engineering design process in your classroom with an activity that challenges teams to design, build, and test a small-scale portable wheelchair ramp. The class develops design requirements, and teams test their designs...

Travel the world from the comfort of your classroom with a lesson that features Google Earth. High schoolers follow a series of steps to locate places all over the earth with sets of coordinates. Additionally, they measure the distance...

Learners respond to four short answer and essay questions based on themes in the poem "The Great Figure" by William Carlos Williams. The poem itself is not included, but the questions could lead to some very interesting class...

Pupils watch a video to learn about different types of sample design and how to use technology to create a random sample. They discover different types of bias that may happen due to the sampling design or the questions. Learners use...

A series on environmental engineering introduces the class to issues that environmental engineers work to solve. This first lesson focuses on air and land issues, and looks at ways to reduce pollution.

All of the people in your class would agree that life would be different without the invention of the telephone! Study Alexander Graham Bell's most famous and influential invention through the primary source document of his...

Explore the science of space exploration. Pupils consider technological advances in propulsion, communication, power, navigation, and imaging. They select one of these areas and create a timeline of historical progress that contributed...

Class members are challenged to design a device that will move a circus elephant into a train car. Groups brainstorm ideas that use simple machines to load the elephant. They then choose one of their ideas, sketch a plan, and present it...

What does it mean to have digital citizenship? A set of lessons teach middle schoolers how to be safe and productive online. From sharing posts to creating secure passwords, learners discuss the importance of remaining diligent—and...

This is an intriguing problem that brings together real-world data, technology, and mathematical problem solving. If visibility wasn't an issue, could you see from the highest point in the lower 48 states, Mt. Whitney, to the lowest...

Different varieties of Christmas trees provide an interesting way to combine social studies, science, math, and technology. Class members not only research the history of the Christmas tree holiday tradition, they compare and...

Computers are useful for more than just surfing the Internet. Pupils first investigate scatter plots and estimate correlation coefficients. Next, they use Microsoft Excel to create scatter plots and determine correlation...

Learners develop self-awareness and discuss the importance of cooperation and communication through worksheets and hands-on, collaborative activities. 

How different can 3-D and 2-D really be? An engineering resource provides an explanation about the importance of two-dimensional technical drawings. Several samples show how to create multi-view drawings from pictorials and...

Provide Ant-Man with a flying device to aid in fighting crime. The first installment of a five-part unit has learners designing and building a flying device for Ant-Man. They write a narrative essay describing the engineering process...

What would school be like if you couldn't teach lessons that require technology? Would it benefit the class? Would it hold them back? Have your learners read this article and answer the basic reading comprehension questions. Then have...

In the activity on this webpage, learners use interactive graphing technology to investigate transformations of graphs. In the first part of the task, they look at the graph of a quadratic function with coordinates of a few points...

Every time you purchase something from the store, it goes into a bag, but what happens to the bag? This lesson encourages your learners to think about what happens to those plastic and paper bags and their effect on the environment. Use...

Young scientists explore the animal kingdom from the safety of the classroom with this short research project. After first choosing an animal, children use the Internet to discover where it lives, what it eats, and how it...