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Introduction to Biomes
Fifth graders use scientific skills and processes to recognize how living things depend on one another and on the environment for survival and the human use of natural resources impacts the environment. Explain how Earth's surface...
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Weather in the USA
Students identify the different types of weather conditions that occur in the United States. They discover how to adapt to weather and explain forecast and warning signals.
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Kepler's 3rd Law
Students derive the velocity in a circular orbit of any radius. They derive the Earth escape velocity and prove Kepler's 3rd law for circular orbits # A simple formula for the orbital period in a circular Earth orbit of given radius.
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Move Your Muscles!
Students, through teacher lecture and class discussion, explore the three different types of muscles in the human body and the effects of microgravity on these muscles. They explain what happens to muscles in outer space and describe the...
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Chernobyl
Students list some of the health effects of radiation exposure. They are engaged in a unit on nuclear power by demonstrating the potential environmental health risks involved.
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Testing the Caverns
Middle schoolers build model caverns using paper mache or clay and bury them in a tray of sand. They test the models by dropping balls onto them to simulate an asteroid hitting the earth. They evaluate the effectiveness of a structure...
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Pass the Plate
Students define constructive forces. They describe how landforms are created as a result of constructive forces. Students recognize active volcano areas in the United States. They demonstrate an understanding of Panagea.
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Personal Written Response Activity
Students complete a final written project. In this personal response lesson, students respond in a creative way to one of the issues presented in the unit. Students may choose to create a series of postcards from a natural disaster,...
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PLANETS IN PROPORTION
Students discover scales for both the solar bodies' relative sizes and their distances from the sun. They find equatorial circumference and volumes of their solar bodies. Students apply estimation strategies and proportioanl reasoning to...
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Impact Craters
Students investigate the factors affecting the size of a crater. In this space science instructional activity, students collect data from the activity and graph them. They explain how velocity of impact relate to crater size.
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What the Sun Can Do
Students develop and test a unique, personally-relevant hypothesis about the consequences of exposure to UV radiation based units on a living organism, common baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae).
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African Savanna
First graders are introduced to the ecosystems of savannas throughout the world. Using new vocabulary, they identify and describe the characteristics of a savanna and the animals that live there. They also describe the Earth's physical...
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Upwelling Terrestrial Radiation
Students calculate the hourly irradiance of the earth at a site given the near-surface air temperature of the site. They compare the calculated values of irradiance with those measured by instruments at the site. Students need to...
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Going My Way?
Students, in groups, study how a magnet works and how people use the Earth's magnetic field to orient themselves.
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Are You Balanced With Your Environment?
Students discuss the impact of not keeping the environment in balance for future generations. As a class, they are introduced to the concept of "Balance of Nature" and what it means. In groups, they research the role of trees and how to...
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Our Solar System
Students analyze the theories of the formation of the universe and solar system. Students analyze planetary motion and the physical laws that explain that motion: Rotation, Revolution, Apparent diurnal motions of the stars, sun, and...
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Measurement Problems
In this measurement worksheet, students determine how gravity affects your weight and mass on a different planet. Students practice converting measurements to different units. This worksheet has 12 problems to solve.
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Recreating the Greenhouse Effect
Learners recreate the greenhouse effect. In this environmental science lesson, students gather materials and follow procedures to create the greenhouse effect on a small scale.
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Hanging Around
Students explore weight by building a spring scale and observing how it responds to objects with different masses. Each team of students can make their own spring scale by following steps which are specifically outlined in the plan. As...
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The Moving Continents from Pangaea to the Future
Eighth graders examine how the movements of the Earth contribute to fossil distribution. In this fossils lesson students make maps of the placement of the continents.
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Water Filtering
Students investigate how polluted water is filtered so people can use this recycled resource. They conduct an experiment in which they put "polluted" water through a filtering system. They investigate what happens at a water treatment...
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Facts and Myths about our Solar System
Sixth graders explore popular ideas about the Sun and Moon. In this space science instructional activity, 6th graders separate commonly accepted details about our solar system into facts and myths. Students research a particular idea and...
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Endangered Species
Fourth graders investigate endangered species to discover reasons for the extinction. Resources are examined to determine preventive measures for the endangerment. The unit contains four lessons.
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Oceanography
Fifth graders use scientific skills and processes to recognize how living things depend on one another and on the environment for survival and that the human use of natural resources impacts the environment. They research how Earth's...