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Classroom Meteorologists: An Experiential Approach to Learning about Seasons and Weather
Students examine several concepts about weather in the seven lessons of this unit. This year long activity helps students to gather data seasonally about wind, clouds, precipitation, and temperature. Earth's three climate zones are...
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Food Chains
Fourth graders study food chains, producers, consumers, and decomposers. They play a food chain game and create food chain mobiles or posters. They take a nature hike around the school and observe various parts of a food chain.
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Life in a Drop of Water
Students examine the structure, function, and characteristics of microscopic organisms that inhabit freshwater through collection of water samples and observation through microscopes.
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Truss Strength
Students are introduced to the design of Old Faithful Lodge at Yellowstone Park including its use of trusses. They work in groups and use straws and modeling clay to design and test a variety of building supports.
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Dripping Wet or Dry as a Bone?
Students use a sponge and water model to explore the concept of relative humidity and create a percent scale. They define humidity and saturation, build a simple humidity/saturation model, collect, predict and interpret data, and create...
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Conduction, Convection, Radiation, Oh My!
Students draw a line graph, and use graphing as a tool to discover more about conduction, convection and radiation. They should design their own experiment using heat sensitive paper to show they explain these 3 processes.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Electric Switches
Students examine how electric circuits are controlled with a switch. They incorporate a switch into a battery/bulb circuit. They design and create their own switches using everyday materials.
Texas Instruments
Graphical Derivatives
Pupils solve functions using the derivative. They determine the derivative of a function based on its graph, then analyze different functions and draw a relationship and conclusion based on the graph.
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It's Rainin', It's Pouring
Students take a quick examine part of the water cycle, and the combined gas laws. The lesson lead them through the conditions necessary for cloud formation and allow them to create clouds in three different hands-on activities.
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Basic Needs of Plants
Second graders conduct a plant experiment. In this basic needs of plants lesson, 2nd graders observe plants for two weeks. Students record data from their plants in journals.
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A New Slant On The Seasons
Students identify how the tilt and position of the Earth causes the seasons. After a discussion of the seasons and when they begin. Using themselves as the objects in the universe, they role play how the rotational movement of the...
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Activity on United States Moon Landing: Apollo 11
Young scholars use the World Wide Web to access additional information needed to complete a set of questions. They demonstrate an understanding of latitude and longitude by interpreting a lunar map.
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TE Lesson: Habitat Mapping
Students examine the current technologies used in mapping resources in the marine environment. They look at remote sensing, sounding, and underwater vehicles. They examine image from the benthic habitat produced by the GIS in order to...
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An Episode on Australian Animals
Fifth graders identify and analyze various ecological regions of Australia in order to identify more about some of the animals that inhabit the area. Students record information they discover on a chart provided that is assessed at end...
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The Solution to Pollution is Dilution
Learners consider what happens to herbicides or insecticides that are used in agricultural practices, especially herbicides that are used to control noxious weeds. They become acquaint with a chemical assessment method known as...
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DNA Models
Young scholars create DNA models. Using puzzle pieces to represent the parts of a DNA strand, they put together a segment of DNA. Once everyone has completed their individual strand, they being linking with other students using tape. ...
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Salt Marsh in a Pan
Young scholars create a model of a salt marsh to discover the impact of pollution and human activities on water-based habitats including bays and the ocean. They recognize the relationship between natural and developed areas. Students...
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Testing for Life
Students test for organic molecules to determine if a solution contains once living molecules. In this characteristics of life instructional activity, students test common liquids for the presence of organic molecules, including starch,...
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Fitting Trash into Yesterday: A Fifth Grade Activity
Fifth graders explore the concept of waste management. In this recycling activity, 5th graders discover the history of waste management and discuss how the U.S. should respond to the issue of ever-increasing waste.
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A Tree is a Friend
Fifth graders discover the value of trees in our society. In this ecosystem instructional activity, 5th graders read the book, A Tree is Nice, and discuss with classmates how trees are essential to our existence due to creating...
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Is There Liquid Water on Mars?
Students assess whether there is liquid water on Mars by analyzing images and data. In this planetary lesson students analyze temperature and pressure graphs and hypothesize about how water could have flowed on Mars.
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Minerals of the Earth
Students learn and practice identifying Earth's minerals and their properties. Working in small groups, they evaluate minerals. This is a well-described lesson plan, which students enjoy.
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Monkey See, Monkey Do
Students consider the influence of bullies and map the social ecosystem of their schools. They create lifelines that compare baboon and human development and write an essay that considers the relationship between psychosocial development...
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Gray Whales
Explore the majestic grey whale while deepening your understanding of animal adaptations. Grey whales from head to toe are specifically designed to fit their environment. Learners will examine the ways in which the flippers, head, body,...